Set up and document workflows

Chemotion is an Open Source Electronic Laboratory Notebook for chemical researchers. The Chemotion ELN is equipped with the basic functionalities necessary for the acquisition and processing of chemical data, in particular the work with molecular structures and calculations based on molecular properties. The ELN allows the search for molecules and reactions not only within the user’s data but also in conventional external sources as provided by SciFinder and PubChem. The ELN provides tools to share data in the Chemotion Data Repository. More information available at: Tremouilhac, P., Nguyen, A., Huang, Y. et al. Chemotion ELN: an Open Source electronic lab notebook for chemists in academia. J Cheminform 9, 54 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13321-017-0240-0

The knowledge base’s of the DataWiz is a complete RDM guideline for Psychology research to support or complement the use of the DataWiz data management tool. The content is structured in three sections: before, during and after data collection & analysis. The first section covers data management planning as well as the various legal and ethical aspects related to data management. The second section focuses on best practices and tips for handling and documenting data during research. Finally, the last section focuses on how to share and preserve data at the end of the project.

DataWiz is an automated assistant for data management in Psychology, developed by the Leibniz Institute for Psychology Information. It is a web-based application that supports researchers in planning their data management before the project starts and in managing their research data during the project. It provides functions to cover the entire research data lifecycle: data preparation, documentation and archiving. It also provides a digital collaborative working environment for you and your team. With DataWiz researchers can reduce the time spent on RDM, increase the quality and ensure the long-term reusability of research data.

The University of North Caroline has developed a step-wise tutorial about metadata. It addresses what metadata is and why is it needed, explains the basic elements of metadata and how these are represemted in standards, as well as how controlled vocabularies are related to metadata. It finally provides a list of best practices resources for metadata.

The University of Helsinki created, upon request, a compact guide for researchers to help with research data documentation. It first introduces the basic elements of documentation, and then provides practical instructions and strategies to proceed with documentation during the research project, but also for the publishing phase.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has developed a series of file organization handouts. The handout for version control briefly summarise different techniques for version control and provides an overview of the main differences between automatic change log platforms and tools.

This course prepare by the Software Carpentry guides through how Git (and GitHub) can be used to manage versions during a project. It starts with the basics (setting up Git and creating a repository), and follows with practical guidelines to track changes, collaborate or resolve conflicts. It has also dedicated sections about the impact of version control on Open Science, licensing and citations.