An interesting concept is the following online training course for Data Management, created by the University of Minnesota Libraries in 2012 by authors Lisa Johnston and Jon Jeffryes. It consists of 7 videos; the complimentary activities are available at http://z.umn.edu/datamgmt.modules
Category Archives for Training tools
Self-paced online courses covering the essentials of research data management
Interesting videoclips: Data curation
Data Management Plans : links
- DMP Online : produced by the UK’s Digital Curation Centre to help research teams respond to a recommendation in Lyon (2007) that “Each funded research project should submit a structured Data Management Plan for peer-review as an integral part of the application for funding.”
- DMP Tool : a service of the University of California Curation Center of the California Digital Library. U.S. funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health require researchers to supply detailed, cost-effective plans for managing research data, called Data Management Plans. Several universities and organizations are developing the DMPTool to help researchers meet these new requirements.
- Research Data Management Plan : University of Melbourne, with additional advice and resources here
- Australian National University Data Management Manual : describes research data management in general and includes an outline for a generic data management plan.
- Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR): guidelines on creating data management plans for grant application purposes, for a wide variety of scientific disciplines
- Guidelines to Data Management : MIT Libraries has compiled a list of online guides cover general principles for managing your data, plus select information related to particular formats or disciplines.
- MIT Libraries : online subject guide proving detailed data management and publishing plans
Data Sharing and Management: an animated videoclip worth watching
Watch here
This educational and entertaining youtube clip: Data Sharing and Management Snafu* in 3 Short Acts, is a data management horror story by Karen Hanson, Alisa Surkis and Karen Yacobucci. This is what shouldn’t happen when a researcher makes a data sharing request! Topics include storage, documentation, and file formats.
Although an animation, and using two bears capable of only robotic voice and minimal facial expression, the shock portrayed when realising that the requested data is not readily accessible, not backed up, not in a present-day format, and that the co-author cannot be traced, is cinematographic excellence!
*snafu: Situation Normal, All F###ed Up – Things are running normally. A well-known military term.
MANTRA: online course covering the essentials of research data management
I have started reading up on research data management, trying to get a thorough understanding of the terminology used, formats available, and research data-related issues. One of the basic training tools I can really recommend is MANTRA. MANTRA is a self-paced online course covering the essentials of research data management, and is designed for doctoral students and other researchers. The course is open access and hosted online by the University Data Library of the University of Edinburgh.
Access the course here
Topics covered by the course include explaining research data, formats, documentation, metadata, storage, security, preservation, sharing and licensing.
The course includes a mini-test at the end of each section, enabling self-measurement of understanding and at the same time capturing the essential points of the chapter.
The short video-clips used in most chapters (mainly interviews with experienced researchers) add a welcome break from the fact-laden text, and, in case readers should battle with the Scottish accents, a transcript of the text is provided on the slide following the interview page! Although able to view the video clips when first accessing MANTRA, I was not able to view the clips later on in the week….reason unknown. Good news is that the description of the interviewee as well as subject matter enabled me to find the same clip on YouYube!
NeDICC 