Data Management Planning – Theory and practice

Lecturer: RNDr. Michal Růžička, Ph.D.

Data are the foundation of the current research. The proper management of data starts to be an essential skill for researchers. More and more research funding agencies insist on preparing and submitting a Data Management Plan (DMP) as part of the project proposal for funding. Having FAIR Data – data that is (F)indable, (A)ccessible, (I)nteroperable, and (R)eusable – is a more and more common requirement as well as verifiability and repeatability of the scientific findings and experiments, which depends heavily on the used data.

To be successful with your research, you should be aware of the lifecycle of your data: What data you are (re)using (including licensing allowing you to do so), what data you generate and how, where you store them, back them up, store them for the long term, how you persistently and uniquely identify them, process them, analyse them, where you publish and share them, who will pay for all these data handlings; what the data really is about, for what the data is suitable and for what it is not, who can reuse the data, what particular data supports your results, how to use them to repeat your experiments etc.

In this seminar, we will discuss research data management in general. Then, more specifically, what DMP could be – yet another bureaucratic document in the pile of sheets of the project proposal papers –, and what DMP you really want to be for you – a handy overview of data you work with.

DMP should be a living document helping you keep an overview of your data. Proper DMP tools can help you not only prepare and maintain up-to-date documentation for the project proposal / final report but also help you measure how your data is to the FAIR attributes. In the seminar, we will demonstrate the preparation of DMP with the DMP tool Data Stewardship Wizard.