Research data management

A briefing for postgraduates

Lindsey MyersResearch Support LibrarianLibrary Research Support Team Autumn Term 2016

Information Services

What is research data management?

Research data management is …

A general term covering how you organize, structure, store, and care for the information used or generated during a research project

Research data management is …

How you look after information on a day-to-day basis over the lifetime of a project

What happens to data in the longer term - what you do with it after the project concludes

Good research practice:

• organising your data

• storing and backing up your data

• choosing the right file formats

• creating documentation for your data

Research data management is …

How you look after information on a day-to-day basis over the lifetime of a project

What happens to data in the longer term - what you do with it after the project concludes

• What data do you need to keep (and share)?

• What data must not be kept (and shared)?

• Where are you going to archive your (selected) data for long-term storage/access?

Why manage your research data?

Carrots and sticks

Carrots - the benefits

Sticks - requirements

• Work efficiently and with minimum hassle over the lifetime of the project

• Save time and avoid problems in the future

• Make it easy to share your data

Carrots and sticks

Carrots - the benefits

Sticks - requirements

• University of York Research Data Management Policywww.york.ac.uk/rdm-policy

• Funding body requirements

University requires …

Good management of research data over the lifetime of your project

Selected research data to be preserved (for a min of 10 years) and shared at the end of the your project

Research data must be:

• accurate, complete, authentic and reliable

• identifiable, retrievable and available when needed

• kept safe and secure, avoiding data loss

• kept in a manner that is compliant with legal and ethical obligations, and (if applicable) funder requirements

• disposed of securely.

University requires …

Good management of research data over the lifetime of your project

Selected research data be preserved (for a min of 10 years) and shared at the end of the your project

Sharing of research data:

a. of long-term valueb. underpinning published

results

where there are no legal, ethical or commercial constraints that would prohibit sharing.

EMBARGOE

D

Funder requirements

Research Councils UK“Publicly funded research data are a public good, produced in the public interest, which should be made openly available with as few restrictions as possible in a timely and responsible manner that does not harm intellectual property.

Data with acknowledged long term value should be preserved and remain accessible and usable for future research.”

RCUK Common Principles on Data Policy www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/datapolicy

If your research is funded

– always follow your

funder’s requirements

and any guidance that

they provide.

How to manage and share research data

Data management plans

Create a Data Management Plan (DMP)

Tools:• DMPonline• York DMP template

A formal document which outlines all aspects of your data management, i.e. what you will do with data during and after your research project ends.

To include:• Description of the data to be

collected/created• Standards/methodologies for data

collection and management• Ethics and Intellectual Property

concerns or restrictions• Plans for data sharing and access• Strategy for long-term preservation

Data management plans

Create a Data Management Plan (DMP)

Tools:• DMPonline• York DMP template

Required by most funders

“All applications seeking research grant funding from BBSRC must submit a data management plan. This should include concise plans for data management and sharing as part of research grant proposal or provide explicit reasons why data sharing is not possible or appropriate.”

BBSRC Data Sharing Policy www.bbsrc.ac.uk/about/policies-standards/

data-sharing-policy

Data management plans

Create a Data Management Plan (DMP)

Tools

DMPonlinehttps://dmponline.dcc.ac.uk An online tool, created by the Digital Curation Centre, which is designed to help you create personalised data management plans according to the requirements stipulated by the major UK funders.

York DMP template for postgraduate research projects www.york.ac.uk/library/info-for/researchers/data/planning

Mechanisms for sharing research data

Deposit your selected data with an external service

Transfer your selected data to the University Research Data York service

• a funder data archive /repository

• a subject data archive/ repository

• a publisher data archive /repository

www.re3data.org to identify a suitable data archive or repository for your data

+ Record the dataset in PUREwww.york.ac.uk/library/info-for/researchers/data/guidance/pure-datasets

Mechanisms for sharing research data

Deposit your selected data with an external service

Transfer your selected data to the University Research Data York service

• We’ll need some descriptive metadata (PURE)

• We will store and manage access to your data for a minimum of 10 years

– a CC-BY licence is applied to open data

– data with restricted access.

Depositing your datawww.york.ac.uk/library/info-for/researchers/data/sharing

/#tab-4

Data citation

If you are:

publishing a dataset as part of your research output

using existing or a third party dataset as part of your research.

To aid data discovery, you are required to provide a data access statement in your published paper. Include:

• where supporting data can be found

• how it may be accessed and any constraints that may apply

• a persistent URL, e.g. a Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

Example statements: www.york.ac.uk/library/info-for/researchers/data/sharing

/#tab-5

Data citation

If you are:

publishing a dataset as part of your research output

using existing or a third party dataset as part of your research.

Formally cite any existing data resources being re-used in publications and other research outputs, using persistent identifiers where available.

Data citation will• acknowledge the original

author/producer • provide the information necessary

to identify and locate the data.

What you need to do

Before your projectPlan your data management

1. Write a funder data management plan OR write a (York) DMP

2. Pull together all eligible costs

During your projectLook after your live data

3. Update the DMP

4. Organise the data

5. Store the data

6. Describe the data

7. Decide what data to keep

End of your projectStart sharing and depositing data to meet University/funder requirements

8. Deposit (and share*) the data

9. Obtain a DOI

10. Include a data access statement in publications

* Decide if data can be shared openly or if access to the data needs to be restricted.

A data management horror story

Video by NYU Health Sciences Librarieshttps://youtu.be/N2zK3sAtr-4

Highlights the things that can go wrong if you don’t manage and share your data well.

Help

Further information and resources

• RDM web pageswww.york.ac.uk/rdm

• RDM workshopbook a place through SkillsForge

• Research Support Team lib-research-support@york.ac.uk

• IT Support Office itsupport@york.ac.uk