Principles and Benefits of

Research Data Management

John Southall

Bodleian Data Librarian

Subject Consultant for Economics, Sociology

and Social Policy & Intervention

Hilary Term

2017

Overview

Help you think about practical issues to

do with creating and working with

(digital) data

Highlight the importance of metadata

Show how ‘data management’ benefits

you

A key part of systematic reviews and

research skills

These slides will be made available!

Policy on Management of

Research Data and Records

What’s meant by research data?

“the recorded information (regardless of the

form or the media in which they may

exist) necessary to support or validate a

research project’s observations, findings or

outputs”.

Policy on Management of

Research Data and Records

There is a formal policy:

“The University of Oxford seeks to promote

the highest standards in the management of

research data and records as fundamental to

both high quality research and academic

integrity.”

See Research Data Oxford (RDO) http://researchdata.ox.ac.uk/

http://researchdata.ox.ac.uk/

Management Policy

Research data and records should be:

◦ a. Accurate, complete and reliable;

◦ b. Identifiable, retrievable, and available when

needed;

◦ c. Secure and kept in an appropriate manner

Impact on You

Responsibility is yours as data creators to

be aware of policy

Combine with wider research skills

development

Make use of the support framework at

Oxford

Respond to funder/publisher expectations

in the future

◦ DMP’s / Data access statements

Benefits to You?

Make more efficient use of data

Bridge the analogue – digital gap

Combat common problems of ‘fragile’

digital data

Increase citations/ impact of research

Increase funding opportunities

Not simple compliance or burden issue

Some Principles of Data

Management

Develop the mind set of RDM as the

research lifecycle

All stages of research

◦ Before

◦ During

◦ After

Data and Metadata

Usable and citable for you now

and in future

Typical Examples

Text files, numerical spreadsheets,

Codebooks and code

Research notebooks

Questionnaires, transcripts, recordings

Potentially everything?

◦ Born digital

◦ Or digitised

Digital Media

Digital – a key factor in rdm

Strengths of digital◦ Perfect copies

◦ Easy to share

◦ Convenient

But there are weaknesses

What can you suggest? What could go

wrong for your research?

Digital Media

Weaknesses of digital◦ Too easy to share

◦ Medium dependent

◦ Corrupted - Immediate loss

◦ Inflexible – difficult to repurpose

◦ Too many copies

◦ Hardware and software dependent

◦ Long term use issues - Digital obsolescence and fragility

◦ Ethical and licensing issues

So - Look after it!

Curation support

Important distinctions in managing your

data and how others view it

Dynamic or static?

Understand the difference

See where and when support fits in

During or after the project?

◦ HFS (during but not after)

◦ RDO on other options

◦ External archival services

Curation as practical steps

Disaster planning

◦ Multiple storage and backups

◦ Data security

Appropriate workflow?

Documentation – Metadata

Storage becomes preservation

Acknowledge lifecycle and other

stakeholders

Sharing data

Curation and retention

How long to keep data?

Discipline traditions may assume destruction

Increasingly retention is favoured

◦ Accessible, discoverable

Have good reasons to destroy

Policy talks of a minimum period only

Current and future use

◦ By you

◦ By others after the project? Data sharing

Support Frameworks

You are not left to figure this all out

yourself!

At Oxford

◦ The Library and its Subject Consultants

◦ Departmental level support

◦ Research Skills training (iSkills)

◦ Research Data Oxford webpage

◦ Research Data Oxford email

◦ ORA / ORA-Data

Ethical and Legal Issues

When does this occur?

◦ Creating data – live participants

◦ Curec

◦ Collecting data – Licensing

Research Ethics◦ Access Restrictions

◦ Participation/ Confidentiality agreements

◦ Ethics Committees and Informed Consent

Influences on current and future use

Support Frameworks

Outside Oxford

◦ Digital Curation Centre

◦ UK Data Archive (create & manage pages)

◦ Edinburgh – MANTRA Course

◦ Take a look at these Oxford and non-Oxford

sites

◦ Emerging literature on RDM

Ask Yourself

If you want to revisit your data ten years

from now

Intellectually possible?

◦ Is there metadata to help? (How do the

pieces fit?)

Technically feasible?

◦ Can the files be found and opened

Ethically/ Legally possible

Use a planned approach…

RDM Planning

Data Management Plans and Planning

A key practical stage

Growing popular with funders and

publishers

RDO outlines policy differences

What is it?

◦ About applying these principles in your

research

◦ Formalising previously informal stages

‘The Plan’ – an outline

Describes the research data being created

or collected

Key responsibilities

How the data will be organised

Disaster recovery

Documentation during the collection and

analysis phase

Tools

‘The Plan’ – other elements

Policy on data storage and security

What facilities and equipment will be

required

How / If the data will be preserved

If being made available in the long term

once research is completed

Plan v. Planning - a considered approach

DMPOnline tool

Closing

RDM supports practical issues to do with

creating and working with data

New interest in metadata

New drive for accessibility and sharing

that can’t be ignored

Keeps frameworks relevant to researcher

needs

Thank You

Contact :

John.southall@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

http://researchdata.ox.ac.uk/

Lifecycle image: The University of California, Santa Cruz, Data Management LibGuide,

Research Data Management Lifecycle, diagram, viewed 15th January 2017

http://guides.library.ucsc.edu/datamanagement

Desert Island: XKCD Comics https://xkcd.com/731/ viewed 15th January 2017

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