Research Data Management

Research data management (RDM) describes the organisation, storage, preservation, and sharing of data collected and used in a research project. 

Research Data Management applies to all all ATU staff and research students engaged in research, irrespective of funding, and those who are conducting research on behalf of the University. 

Research data refers to anything that is required to validate or reproduce research findings, or to get a better understanding of them.

Being mindful of how you manage your data will help you to:

• Fulfil funder and institutional expectations and policies
• Ensure your data is accessible and shareable
• Show responsible practice
• Keep your research safe and secure
• Increase your research efficiency
• Enhance your research integrity
• Increase your impact
• Make your research outputs more visible
• Facilitate collaboration

Making data available in a well-timed and responsible way ensures other researchers can validate it, develop it and use it to progress knowledge.

The management of research data is essential to high quality research and academic integrity. Whether you are an undergraduate, graduate, or an academic working on a research project, managing your data well is one of the best ways ensure standardisation, reproducibility, and the ability to disseminate your research; along with saving you time in the long run. Without proper data management, the validity of research results might be doubted, jeopardising your reputation, as well as the reputation of the college.

Examples of research data:

• text documents
• audio and video recordings
• photographs
• spreadsheets
• collections of digital objects
• questionnaires, transcripts of interviews
• algorithms, scripts

Data should be managed to be:

• Compliant - funding bodies, institutions and publishers increasingly require grant-holders to develop and implement DMPs, with policies on how data is managed and shared.
• Efficient - well-managed data enables data discovery, access, validation, analysis, shareability and longevity.
• Responsible - data management is a fundamental ethics code of the responsible conduct of research.
• Transparent - data that is suitably managed and described supports published research outcomes and improves data quality.

Where can I deposit my data?

Research@THEA is our shared Open Access Repository platform for researchers and academic staff to publish and promote their work.

See: Research@THEA LibGuide for more information. 

A list of other trusted repositories is available at Re3data.

Tutorials & training

• Open Science Training Courses - Foster 
• Research Data Management Training - Mantra
• Rethinking Research Data - TEDx Talk

Further reading

• CONUL. Research Support Task and Finish Group: Briefing Documents & Recommendations. Strategy to develop the research support capacity of CONUL libraries.
• Digital Curation Centre. How to Develop a Data Management and Sharing Plan. Outlines the process of developing a data management and sharing plan.
• OCLC. The Realities of Research Data Management. A four-part series that explores how research universities are addressing the challenge of managing research data throughout the research lifecycle.
• OpenAIRE. How to create a Data Management Plan. Guides for Researchers for H2020 projects.
• Science Europe. A practical guide to the International alignment of research data management. This resource offers targeted guidance for organisations, scientific communities, as well as individual researchers, to organise research data and preserve it appropriately.