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Awesome RDM

"Awesome Research Data Management" is a curated list of awesome RDM resources for researchers and organizations.

Definitions

"Research data are objects that you use and produce during your research life cycle, encompassing datasets, software, code, workflow, models, figures, tables, images and videos, interviews, articles. Data are your research asset." The Turing Way / Guide for Reproducible Research / Research Data Management / Research Data

Research "data management refers to the storage, access and preservation of data produced from a given investigation. Data management practices cover the entire lifecycle of the data, from planning the investigation to conducting it, and from backing up data as it is created and used to long term preservation of data deliverables after the research investigation has concluded. Specific activities and issues that fall within the category of data management include: File naming (the proper way to name computer files); data quality control and quality assurance; data access; data documentation (including levels of uncertainty); metadata creation and controlled vocabularies; data storage; data archiving and preservation; data sharing and reuse; data integrity; data security; data privacy; data rights; notebook protocols (lab or field)." CODATA RDM-Terminology / RDM

In a wider sense research data management include also research information management and research knowledge management.

Table of contents

General resources

Registries

Registries of Terminologies, Vocabularies, Ontologies

Toolkits

Courses

Books

Games

Wikis

FAIR principles

Research data centers

Journals

Conferences

RDM for researchers

Use case: a researcher wants to plan, run and finish a research project.

Planning a project

Motivation for RDM

Costing RDM

Check out research data center at your university. They will guide you in RDM for free.

Writing a project proposal and searching funding

Data management coordination

It makes sense only in big research projects.

Data Management Planning

A Data Management Plan (DMP) describes how research data is handled before the project has commenced, ensuring the traceability of data during the project and beyond. DMPs are often required in a formalized form when submitting a funding application or during the project period, for example with Horizon Europe, ERC grants. The DFG also asks for information on Data Management, although this is not explicitly a DMP and the DFG.

A DMP typically contains the following elements:

  • Data Description/Data Collection
  • Documentation and Data Quality
  • Storage and Backup
  • Legal and Ethical Requirements
  • Data Sharing and Archiving
  • Data Management, who and what?

DMPs and Research Funding in Germany:

DMP requirements differ depending on the funding institution within Germany (see below).

Funding Institution DMP Requirements DMP Template
German Research Foundation (DFG) Not explicitly a DMP, but information on data management is usually required in section 2.4 of the application. There are also some subject-specific and program-specific recommendations on how to handle research data in grant applications, but researchers are not obligated to go further than the general guidance provided. See DFG Guidelines on the Handling of Research Data. Yes (unofficially)
Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) There are no general requirements with regard to research data. The requirements are defined individually for each tender. See Federal Ministry of Education and Research. No
Volkswagen Foundation Yes, it is a requirement for research funding from the Volkswagen Stiftung that applicants submit a DMP with their application for funding. See Volkswagen Stiftung Open Science Policy. Yes
Baden-Württemberg Stiftung No No
Fritz Thyssen Foundation No No
Hans Böckler Foundation No No

Adapted from CESSDA Training Team (2017 – 2022). CESSDA Data Management Expert Guide. Bergen, Norway: CESSDA ERIC. Table by: CESSDA

And Across Europe:

Funding Institution DMP Requirements DMP Template
European Research Council (ERC) Yes, applicants must submit a DMP after the first 6 months of the funding period and must continuously update the DMP if significant changes occur, see ERC, Open Science, Section 2. Research Data in Horizon Europe. Yes
Horizon Europe Yes, applicants must submit a DMP after the first 6 months of the funding period and must continuously update the DMP if significant changes occur, see Horizon Europe. Yes
European Science Foundation No No

You may also want to consider the data management standards in your own research field (e.g., Humanities, Social Sciences, Business and Economics) which might inform what you should include in your DMP, in which case, check out the following:

Need some inspiration? You can check out examples of DMPs from successful research applications by checking out the Digital Curation Center (DCC) here and get an idea of what reviewers might be looking for here.

Applying for funding outside of Germany? You can find out more information about DMP requirements for research funding applications abroad here.

For further information you can also check out the following:

Reviewing and evaluating DMPs:

Data policies

(Research-) Data Policies are guidelines and recommendations for handling research data. They can be on different levels and from different actors, such as:

There are also tips, toolkits and other materials to help institutions and projects develop a data policy. For example, you can find materials from these projects:

Reusing data

First, find it.

Check quality of the data. Check licenses. If you reuse data, cite it.

Executing a project

Collecting data

The focus here on:

  • Reusing existing data
  • Collecting new data

General info on collecting data

Lists of data sources:

Registries of data repositories:

  • FAIRsharing is a curated, informative and educational resource on data and metadata standards, inter-related to databases and data policies
  • re3data is a registry of research data repositories

Metadata and data portals:

Methods of collecting data:

Creating metadata

Organizing data

Data storage

Separate storage for sensitive data

Data backup

Cleaning data

Data exploration

Data interpretation

Anonymising data

Topics:

  • Data Masking
  • Pseudonimisation
  • Aggregation
  • Derived Data

Data protection

Data provenance

Legal aspects

Finishing a project

The difference between sharing, publishing & archiving is:

  • sharing: any way of sharing information, could mean also emailing. It means also making research data available throughout the research lifecycle, especially during the active research phase, typically via cloud storage.
  • publishing: citable artifact, discoverable.
  • archiving: long-term preservation.

Sharing data

There are many benefits to sharing data.

You can share the data via GitHub

Publishing data

Data journals:

Presenting data

"from infographics to narrative reports, case studies and long form investigative articles, to graffiti or conceptual art"

Data licensing

For restricted access data:

Archiving data

RDM for organizations

How to develop RDM services

How to choose an RDM repository

Persistent Identifiers

  • DOI registration agencies is a list of current DOI registration agencies
  • URN is a list of all registered namespaces provided by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)

Discipline-specific RDM

Social and economic data

Digital Humanities

Discipline-specific tools

Digital Humanities and Social Sciences

Discipline-specific repositories

Digital editions

Domain-specific NFDI consortia

There are 26 domain-specific NFDI consortia aiming to ensure FAIR data in Germany.

NFDI consortia in Humanities and Social Sciences

  • BERD@NFDI: NFDI for Business, Economic and Related Data
  • KonsortSWD: Consortium for the Social, Educational, Behavioural and Economic Sciences
  • NFDI4Culture: Consortium for Research Data on Material and Immaterial Cultural Heritage
  • NFDI4Memory: The Consortium for the Historically Oriented Humanities
  • NFDI4Objects: Research Data Infrastructure for the Material Remains of Human History
  • Text+: Language and text-based research data infrastructure

NFDI consortia in Engineering Sciences

  • NFDI4DataScience: NFDI for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence
  • NFDI4Energy: National Research Data Infrastructure for Interdisciplinary Energy System Research
  • NFDI4Ing: NFDI for Engineering Sciences
  • NFDI-MatWerk: National Research Data Infrastructure for Materials Science and Materials Engineering
  • NFDIxCS: National Research Data Infrastructure for and with Computer Science

NFDI consortia in Life Sciences

  • DataPLANT: Plant research data
  • FAIRagro: FAIR Data Infrastructure for Agrosystems
  • NFDI4Immuno: National Research Data Infrastructure for Immunology
  • GHGA: National Research Data Infrastructure for Immunologyv
  • NFDI4Biodiversity: Biodiversity, Ecology and Environmental Data
  • NFDI4BIOIMAGE: National research data infrastructure for microscopy and bioimage analysis
  • NFDI4Health: NFDI personal health data
  • NFDI4Microbiota: NFDI for Microbiota Research

NFDI consortia in Natural Sciences

  • DAPHNE4NFDI: Data from PHoton and Neutron Experiments for NFDI
  • FAIRmat: FAIR Data Infrastructure for Condensed-Matter Physics and the Chemical Physics of Solids
  • NFDI4Cat: NFDI for sciences related to catalysis
  • MaRDI: Mathematical Research Data Initiative
  • NFDI4Chem: Chemistry consortium for the NFDI
  • NFDI4Earth: NFDI Consortium Earth System Sciences
  • PUNCH4NFDI: Particles, Universe, NuClei and Hadrons for the NFDI