Managing your Data   Tags: data, data management, digital, nih, nsf, preservation, publishing, tutorial  

This guide discusses several stages of data management:

• Creating the Plan
• Documenting Your Data
• Publishing Your Data 
• Data Mandates
• Data Preservation

      And there are 

• More Links to further resources on data management

This guide is heavily modeled on the excellent data management guide at Rutgers.

If you are generating and/or using data in your research, a well-thought out approach to data management will save you time and frustration, maximize the impact of your work, and is an important component of the responsible conduct of scholarship.  A data management plan can help you: 

• Conduct research efficiently by analysing your data practices
• Simplify the use and reuse of your data through proper documentation and application of standards
• Increase your research visibility by publishing your datasets and documentation in repositories
• Meet funding agency, legal and ethical requirements for dissemination and documentation of your research
• Preserve and provide access to your data in the long term, allowing future scholars to build on your work

Data can be any systematic collection of information that can be analyzed.  In addition to numerical data in various formats, research data also includes:

• video
• audio files
• photographs/slides
• text
• physical collections
• charts
• raster files
• graphs

These and more can be considered data when they have been structured and properly documented for analysis. If you have questions about how to format your non-numerical information please consult your librarian.