Plan and design

This interactive on-line course prepared by the Social Science Research Council and the Qualitative Data Repository contains four modules about different aspects of RDM of qualitative data in Social Sciences. Each module is composed by multiple lessons and can also function as a stand-alone resource to be completed individually. Most lessons include associated readings, resources, exercises, and activities.

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.

The University of Glasgow run a work package between 2018 and 2019 to investigate the user requirements for Electronic Research Notebooks (ELNs). They organized a series of workshops to understand user needs, and run software trials to increase the interest and understand barriers inhibiting the uptake of ELNs. The results and conclusions of the exercise have now been published.

Utrecht University has created a simple decision-tree tool that helps researchers to choose a generic repository that best fits their needs. To do so, criteria such as restriction of access and cost of the repository are taken into account.

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 Glasgow has designed a LEGO® based game for 4-24 players to teach about metadata and reproducibility. In their own words: "The game addresses issues including planning for metadata, formats of metadata recording, standards and automation. The game also draws multiple parallels between recording and communicating the research process and documenting and the creation of a LEGO® model. The process of playing the game draws researchers into discussions on how metadata is captured, recorded and disseminated, which in turn provides an opportunity for signposting to further resources in this area."

Utrecht University provides an overview of possible legal instruments and agreements that might be necessary to establish prior to data collection. The information is provided in a user friendly approach departing from the perspective of different stakeholders perspective: data subject, third party and data reuser. It then provides extended details of what it instrument entails with further guidance, templates or examples for each case.

The OpenAire project has prepared a guideline to cost data management based on the work of the UK Data Service and the Landelijk Coördinatiepunt Research Data Management. For each data management phase, different activities are foreseen and a description and estimated costs are provided. The guidelines come with brief instructions on how to used them and a useful infographic about RDM and sharing data costs, prepared for OpenAire by the Digital Curation Centre.

The University of Bristol has elaborated brief but complete guidelines to anticipate data management costs in a research project, so that these can be included in research funding applications. The guideline provides approximated costs of different activities at different stages of the research data lifecycle.

The University of Ghent summarises all the RDM requirements per funder and grouped into four categories: during proposal stage, post-award data management plan, covering data management costs and data sharing and/or preservation requirements.