Research Data Management describes all of the ways researchers collect, analyze, store, and use data during a project. It includes writing and following lab procedures, keeping backups of hard copies and digital items, and thinking ahead about how these data may be re-used or re-purposed.
So why manage your data?
- Increase your impact. Making data freely available to other researchers can boost the reach and relevance of your results.
- Save time and money. Having a data management plan means you've already thought about how your data will be shared and preserved long-term—so you don't have to convert, clean, or reorganize your datasets at the end of a project.
- Safeguard your work. Placing your data in an repository means you are no longer responsible for making sure it stays complete, uncorrupted, and accessible.
- Aid future research. Careful management and documentation of your data will make it possible for you and other researchers to understand, replicate, and re-use it.
- Promote new discoveries. Your data may have uses beyond the scope of your original research proposal. Sharing data turns your research results into part of an ever-growing dataset for other researchers.
- Comply with funding requirements. Obeying public access mandates is part of the grant reporting process, and can affect whether you receive additional funds.
