Data Management

Datasets often outlive the projects that create them. Increasingly, funders request or require that their funding recipients create and follow plans for managing data, storing or preserving it for the future and making some or all of their data available on open access. It is accepted that not all data will be available for sharing due to commercial or ethical considerations so there may well be an opt-out clause in the funder’s policy.

Without curation data is vulnerable and is easily lost. This short video clearly explains why data needs to be managed and minded. 

Remember data is a digital asset and needs to be managed so as

• To ensure research integrity and validation of results.
• To increase research efficiency.
• To facilitate data security and minimise the risk of loss.
• To ensure wider dissemination, increased impact and online sharing.
• To enable research continuity through secondary data use.
• To comply with funders’ requirements.

For the Sciences the expectation is that the data can be reused and in order to validate the findings. For the Arts and Humanities it is more about using the data to evidence the production of new knowledge (this may be more subjective, ephemeral and tacit). If data is not managed properly, it can quickly become lost or unusable because of obsolete file formats, hardware and so on. The best way to manage your data is with a Data Management Plan