Data Management

Beginners

Over the course of a PhD, students will create and use large amounts of different types of data. These modules are designed to help students manage their data effectively, and to make them aware of some of the legal and ethical issues involved in dealing with data.

First year PhD students in Life Sciences

Number of sessions: 1

Creating and Managing Data

• The concept of the data lifecycle
• File structure, naming, and formats. Making use of an effective personalised system for data management will both facilitate research, and make preservation actions in the future easier to deal with
• Starting to produce a post-graduate data management plan

Working with Digital Data

• Short-term preservation of digital data, such as back-up strategies, issues of sharing and access, and version control. These are particularly relevant to collaborative work
• Coverage of issues that affect the whole research process, such as Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), including copyright, and Freedom of Information (FoI). The implications to e-theses will also be covered
• Completion of the post-graduate data management plan
• Issues of sensitive data and ethics

• To understand common issues in the effective management of digital data, including defining research data and the data lifecycle
• To consider the data that you will collect and ways in which this can be managed, including drawing up suitable file-naming schemes, working with shared data
• To create a data management plan to help guide you through your PhD

Presentations, discussions and some practical work

One two hour session