Support Your Data: A Research Data Management Guide for Researchers

John Borghi,John Chodacki,Stephanie Simms,Daniella Lowenberg,Stephen Abrams

doi:10.3897/rio.4.e26439

Abstract

Researchers are faced with rapidly evolving expectations about how they should manage and share their data, code, and other research materials. To help them meet these expectations and generally manage and share their data more effectively, we are developing a suite of tools which we are currently referring to as "Support Your Data". These tools, which include a rubric designed to enable researchers to self-assess their current data management practices and a series of short guides which provide actionable information about how to advance practices as necessary or desired, are intended to be easily customizable to meet the needs of a researchers working in a variety of institutional and disciplinary contexts.

Highlights

Research data management (RDM), a term that encompassess activities related to the storage, organization, documentation, and dissemination of data*1, is central to efforts aimed at maximizing the value of scientific investment (e.g. Holdren 2013) and addressing concerns related to the integrity of the research process (e.g Collins and Tabak 2014)
The sharing of data from human participants must be approved by an institutional review board (IRB) and described in informed consent documents before any data is collected (Meyer 2018)
Related guidance (e.g. Goodman et al 2014) and standards (e.g. FAIR - Wilkinson et al 2016) highlight that proper data management is a key factor in enabling effective data sharing which is itself a key factor in establishing research transparency and reproducibility

Summary

Introduction

Research data management (RDM), a term that encompassess activities related to the storage, organization, documentation, and dissemination of data*1, is central to efforts aimed at maximizing the value of scientific investment (e.g. Holdren 2013) and addressing concerns related to the integrity of the research process (e.g Collins and Tabak 2014). These materials consist of a rubric designed to allow researchers to self assess their own RDM practices over the course of a research project and a complementary set of guides that direct researchers towards RDM-related services at their institution and provide actionable information about how to advance their practices as necessary or desired.

Results

Conclusion