A tutorial on research data management workflows and digital tools presented to Ph.D. students and researchers at the Computational Methods Hub, at Imperial College London.

1. Research Data Management:
A DIY Guide – What? Why? How?
CM Hub Research Data Management Tutorial
Imperial College London, 23rd June 2016
Ash Barnes and Sarah A. Stewart
Research Data Management Team
Central Library
Imperial College London
rdm-enquiries@imperial.ac.uk

2. Library
Services
Research Data Management:
A DIY Guide – What? Why?
How?
Presented by:
Ash Barnes – Research Data Support Manager
Sarah Stewart – Research Data Support Assistant
rdm-enquiries@imperial.ac.uk

3. What is Research Data Management?
• ‘Research Data Management is the planning, organisation and preservation
of the evidence that underpins all research conclusions. Good data
management ensures data is safely stored, findable and can be used to
reproduce findings.’
• - Imperial College London Research Data Management Guide.

4. What are Data?

5. Data are…
“Facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis”
(Oxford Dictionary of English 3rd ed)
“Information, especially facts or numbers, collected to be
examined and considered and used to help decision-
making…”
(Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary & Thesaurus)
"Research data is defined as recorded factual material commonly retained by
and accepted in the scientific community as necessary to
validate research findings; although the majority of such data is created in
digital format, all research data is included irrespective of the format in which
it is created."

6. Data are…
- Quantitative or Qualitative measurements, automated or observed
- Biological or medical specimens
- Images (photographs, drawings, etc.)
- Field and lab notes (observations)
- GIS measurements
- Simulations
- Software/code
- Videos
- Interviews
- Government records
- Different file formats
- Etc. What do you think data are? What types of data do you use/generate?

7. The Data Lifecycle

8. Why is Research Data Management Important?
Good Professional Practice:
- Funder mandates and requirements
- Supports institutional integrity (Imperial College policy)
- Supports collaboration through data sharing and re-use
- Reduces redundancy in research
Value to you as a Researcher:
- Reduce the risk of data loss
- Increased efficiency
- Validated and replicable research
- Increased sharing and re-use (increased possibilities for
collaboration)
- Increased citations
- Increased Impact!

9. The importance of RDM…
“In their parents' attic, in boxes in the garage, or stored on now-defunct
floppy disks — these are just some of the inaccessible places in which
scientists have admitted to keeping their old research data.”
http://www.nature.com/news/scientists-losing-data-at-a-rapid-rate-
1.14416

10. Protect your Data

11. A Near Miss!

12. Funder requirements…
“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…”
RCUK Common Principles on Data Policy

13. Funder requirements

14. Research Data Management Is Good Practice

15. How to Manage your Research Data at Imperial

16. Data Management Plans
- Funder requirement/mandate (eg. EPSRC, Wellcome, NIH)
- Fundamentals of data-handling during the course of the project.
- Supports data use and re-use beyond the life of the project.
- Plan for data security and sharing.
- Long-term data storage following the end of the project.

17. Data Management Plans: DMPOnline

18. Working with ‘Live’ Data: Box
- Unlimited data
storage
- Easy sharing and
collaboration
- Automated backup
- Machine-learning:
metadata
- Integration with MS
Office
- Further
developments…

19. Archiving your Data: Zenodo

20. Publishing your Data: The Data Access Statement

21. Publishing your Data: Making it Discoverable on Symplectic

22. Looking for Data? Repositories!
- Re3data
- DataCite
- Zenodo
- Dryad
- Figshare
- Spiral – Institutional Repository for Imperial College London
- Arxiv, Bioarxiv, etc. – Subject-specific data repositories

23. Any Questions ?
Thank you!
For more Information:
Webpage: www.imperial.ac.uk/research-data-management
E-mail : rdm-enquiries@imperial.ac.uk
RDM Team – Ash Barnes, Sarah Stewart