Scholarly Communication & Publishing: Data Management

Document Your Plan 

Once you have created your data management plan, whether informally, or by creating a DMP, document your plan. Include your group's procedures for the following: 

• Naming files 
• Saving and backing up files 
• Describing data files 
• Version tracking 

Remember to create plan for knowledge transfer. Think ahead to someone leaving the group, or when your project changes hands. 

Principles applied to both data and metadata: 

F - Findable 

A - Accessible

I -  Interoperable

R- Reusable

Having a data management plan is beneficial and in some cases required for scholarly research and publication. An effective DMP makes your published research easier to reuse and cite.  When formulating a data plan consider three things:

 1.Categorization

• Source  (observational, experimental, situational, or compiled)
• Format  (text, numeric, audiovisual, equipment outputs, models, code)
• Stability (fixed, growing, revisable AND if revisable- will you need to keep track of data versions?)
• Amount/Volume (How much data will be produced?)

2. File format

•  The file format you choose for your data is a primary factor in someone else's ability to access it in the future.
• Which file format will be best to manage, share, and preserve your data?
• For example, perform data collection and/or analysis in Excel, but save as a CSV (comma separated value)

3. Persistent identifiers

•  URLs, DOIs, etc.

Use descriptive and informative file names.          

Choose file formats that will ensure long-term access. 

Create metadata for every experiment or analysis run. 

Handle sensitive data in an appropriate manner.

De-identify data of PID, think about HIPAA compliance.