Research Data Management

A toolkit created by JISC that signposts to relevant resources for RDM

RDM Training funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), aimed at postgraduates, PhD students and early career researchers, but for anyone who wants to get the right data habits now.

A structured MOOC offering a good introduction to research data management, data management planning and data sharing. Suitable for most, if not all disciplines.

An EU funded free course in managing and sharing data. This website also has free courses in other aspect of managing data and Open Scholarship and is well worth checking out for free development of research skills.

Data Management Guidance designed by European experts to help social science researchers make their research data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR).

A free PDF from the UK Data Service outlining research data management considerations. Applicable to most, if not all disciplines.

UKRI, Universities UK and Wellcome Trust's Concordat on Open Research Data. This document has influenced policy at various levels within the UK and abroad.

A list of resources from the DCC to help with DMPs. We are using the DCC template for Postgraduate Researchers so these are of particular use to this group. It also includes guidance for funded researchers.

A free, online tool to help you create your data management plans. It includes basic templates, funder templates and example plans. We recommend PGRs use this to create their plan using the DCC template.

An article about creating DMPs from a US, Computational Biology perspective.

Use this tool to check funder requirements for Open Access/ Open Data. If your funder isn't listed, feel free to contact your Information Specialist.

A link to major funder requirements, DMP templates and sample plans from the Data Curation Centre

A list of Creative Commons licenses and what they allow you to do with 3rd party data.

Find out more about Open Source licenses for software and what you can do with 3rd party data under one of these licenses.

Information about the Mozilla Public License 2.0 for software/code

Find out more about Data Citation and how best to cite the data you may be using in your research

Use this tool to format a data citation for a required citation style. You just need the DOI of the dataset.

The University of Plymouth's Ethics guidance pages, with links to relevant documents.

In part of this video, Dr Niamh Moore Deputy Director of Research (Ethics) at the School of Social and Political Science and Robin Rice, Data Librarian (both at the University of Edinburgh) talk about what GDPR may mean for your research. They then go on to talk about the services available at the University of Edinburgh. Please check the Research Data Management library guide for information on local services.

UKRI's document explaining how GDPR relates to research.

The Open Data Institute has created resources on Data Ethics. There is a social sciences/ big data/ organisational data steer, but these resources may be useful to other disciplines.

Information from JISC on costing Research Data Management using two approaches. Includes links to further resources.

UK Data Service's guidance on Costing RDM, with a link to their costing tool.

A tutorial in File Formats and Transformations- taken from The University of Edinburgh MANTRA training.

Guidance from CESSDA on organising both qualitative and quantitative data files, with a subtopic on organising variables.

A video about managing data and organising it throughout a project.

An explanation of how to view previous versions of Office files, with a link to how versioning tools work in Sharepoint (which includes Research Sites)

A presentation introducing GitHub and how it works for collaboration

A LinkedIn Learning course about using GitHub

Advice from Stanford libraries on File Naming- includes handouts and examples of best and poor practice.

A video explaining how to distinguish consistently between file versions, to ensure a clear audit trail. If you like this, try out the Research Data Management and Sharing MOOC or the MANTRA training from the generic resources section.

There are links off this page to further disciplinary standards

A light-touch introduction to metadata- images may not display but the article can be understood without if necessary.

Guidance from the UK Data Service on- study-level documentation, data-level documentation, catalogue metadata and documentation resources.

This group exercise may help you work out how to describe your data for someone viewing it for the first time- you may like to try it with some friends or colleagues.

Jupyter Electronic Notebook

Evernote Online notebook

GitHub for collaboration, version control, documentation and project management

University of Plymouth Information Security guidance- includes online training for GDPR and Information Security and links to further information.

A video about effective backup strategies for your research data. If you like this, check out the Research Data Management and Sharing MOOC or MANTRA training from the generic resources section.

A video on issues in storing, securing and backing up your research data. If you like this, try the Research Data Management and Sharing MOOC or MANTRA training from the generic resources section.

Research Sites are a type of Team Site in Sharepoint that you can request space for to manage research with internal and external collaborators.

A quick overview of why you may want to share your research data.

Information about sharing research data- particularly sensitive data.

Links to internal guidance on Intellectual Property

Slides from UK Scholarly Publishing Group describing benefits to data citation and developments in this area.

Deciding which data to keep and which to delete

Guidance on writing data access statements

A starting list of data journals

Training on using Open Data in teaching

A guide to licensing research data

This tool helps you to decide which Creative Commons license to apply to your work. You can also explore this site to find out more about Creative Commons licenses. Note- CC licences are generally not suitable for software.

A good introduction to data journals and data papers

Use this tool to find the most appropriate repository for your dataset

A set of guides covering the main aspects of depositing software into digital repositories

Information on Open Source licenses with an overview, permissions, conditions and limitations.

A tool to help you select the most appropriate license for your work