Lunchtime Session: Keeping on Top of Your Research Data - 2014-02-10 - Social Sciences Division, University of Oxford
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This slideshow was used at a lunchtime session delivered at the Social Sciences Division, University of Oxford, on 2014-02-10. It provides some tips for keeping your research material under control.
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Lunchtime Session: Keeping on Top of Your Research Data - 2014-02-10 - Social Sciences Division, University of Oxford
- 1. Lunchtime session: Keeping on top of your research data Slides provided by the Research Support Team, IT Services, University of Oxford
- 2. What does data include? “A reinterpretable representation of information in a formalized manner suitable for communication, interpretation, or processing.” Digital Curation Centre Slide adapted from the PrePARe Project Keeping on top of your research data
- 3. What does data include? Any information you use in your research Slide adapted from the PrePARe Project Keeping on top of your research data
- 4. Carrots and sticks Work efficiently and University of Oxford with minimum hassle Policy on the now Management of Research Data and More time for the Records meat of the research process Funding body requirements Avoid problems in the future Keeping on top of your research data
- 5. Policy and funder requirements University of Oxford Policy states that research data should be: Accurate, complete, identifiable, retrievable, and securely stored Able to be made available to others Funders are also taking an increasing interest in data Many require it to be shared at the end of a project Keeping on top of your research data
- 6. Consider a data management plan A document which may be created in the early stages of a project While An planning, applying for funding, or setting up initial plan may be expanded later Details plans and expectations for data Nature of data and its creation or acquisition Storage and security Preservation and sharing Keeping on top of your research data
- 7. Digital Curation Centre A national service providing advice and resources Create a data management plan using the DMP online tool http://www.dcc.ac.uk/ https://dmponline.dcc.ac.uk/ Keeping on top of your research data
- 8. Forward planning pays dividends Plan with sharing in mind from the beginning Appropriate Distinguish consent from interview subjects third party and new data Keeping on top of your research data
- 9. What‟s obvious now might not be in a few months, years, decades… MAKE SURE YOU CAN UNDERSTAND IT LATER Adapted from „Clay Tablets with Linear B Script‟ by Dennis, via Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/archer10/5692813531/ Slide adapted from the PrePARe Project Keeping on top of your research data
- 10. Can you find what you need, when you need it? „What a mess‟ by .pst, via Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/psteichen/3915657914/. Keeping on top of your research data
- 11. Hierarchical systems vs. tagging Hierarchical organization uses nested folders Default option for most operating systems Tagging allows more flexibility Some operating systems support tagging Items can be in multiple categories File tagging software is also available Sort… or search? Keeping on top of your research data
- 12. Adding tags in Windows 7 Keeping on top of your research data
- 13. Hyperlinks and shortcuts Hyperlinks can lead to other files on your computer, as well as Web links Use shortcuts to avoid duplicating files Create project folders to group related material together Keeping on top of your research data
- 14. File naming Aim for concise but informative names Ideally, you should be able to tell what‟s in a file without opening it Think about the ordering of elements within a filename YYYY-MM-DD dates allow chronological sorting You can force an order by adding a number at the beginning of the name Consider including version information Keeping on top of your research data
- 15. File naming strategies – examples Order by date: Order by type: 2013-04-12_interview-recording_THD.mp3 2013-04-12_interview-transcript_THD.docx Interview-recording_THD_2013-04-12.mp3 2012-12-15_interview-recording_MBD.mp3 Interview-transcript_MBD_2012-12-15.docx 2012-12-15_interview-transcript_MBD.docx Interview-recording_MBD_2012-12-15.mp3 Interview-transcript_THD_2013-04-12.docx Order by subject: Forced order with numbering: MBD_interview-recording_2012-12-15.mp3 01_THD_interview-recording_2013-04-12.mp3 MBD_interview-transcript_2012-12-15.docx 02_THD_interview-transcript_2013-04-12.docx THD_interview-recording_2013-04-12.mp3 03_MBD_interview-recording_2012-12-15.mp3 THD_interview-transcript_2013-04-12.docx 04_MBD_interview-transcript_2012-12-15.docx Keeping on top of your research data
- 16. File naming strategies – examples In retrospect I am not very happy with the method I used for naming files. The biggest problem was with the newspaper articles I downloaded… I named the files only based on the topic of the article, without mentioning the name of the periodical and the year of publication, which would have been very useful later, when I began writing the thesis. – Doctoral student researching communication history Keeping on top of your research data
- 17. Are you using the right tools for the job? Take time to assess whether your current software and methods are meeting your needs Sticking with old familiars can be false economy Ask friends and colleagues for recommendations Keeping on top of your research data
- 18. Research Skills Toolkit Website and handson workshops A guide to software, University services, and other tools and resources for research Requires SSO login http://www.skillstoolkit.ox.ac.uk/ Keeping on top of your research data
- 19. IT Learning Programme Over 200 different IT courses Covering software, skills, and new technologies http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/itlp/ ITLP Portfolio offers course materials and other resources http://portfolio.it.ox.ac.uk/ Keeping on top of your research data
- 20. IT Services: Research Support Team Can assist with technical aspects of research projects at all stages of the project lifecycle But the earlier you seek advice, the better For more information, see our website: http://blogs.it.ox.ac.uk/acit-rs-team/about/ Or email us on researchsupport@it.ox.ac.uk Keeping on top of your research data
- 21. ORDS – Online Research Database Service Specifically designed for academic research data Cloud-hosted and automatically backed up Web interface makes collaboration straightforward If desired, databases can easily be made public Designed to permit easy archiving Currently being used by a small group of test users – will become more widely available later in 2014 http://ords.ox.ac.uk/ Keeping on top of your research data
- 22. Backing up is easier than replacing lost data… http://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk/pmr/2011/08/01/why-you-need-a-data-management-plan/ Slide adapted from the PrePARe Project Keeping on top of your research data
- 23. Make multiple copies… …and keep them in different places Automate the process if you can Slide adapted from the PrePARe Project Keeping on top of your research data
- 24. IT Services: Data Back-up on the HFS HFS is Oxford‟s central back-up and archiving service Free of charge to University staff and postgraduates Automated back-ups of machines connected to University network Copies kept in multiple places Keeping on top of your research data
- 25. File syncing If you work on multiple devices, consider file syncing software Always have the latest copy of your files available But be careful with sensitive data Keeping on top of your research data
- 26. Research data management website Oxford‟s central advisory website Covers data management planning, back-up and security, data sharing and archiving, funder requirements, etc. University policy is available http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/rdm/ Keeping on top of your research data
- 27. Research Data MANTRA Free online interactive training modules Aimed at postgraduates and early career researchers http://datalib.edina.ac.uk/mantra/ Keeping on top of your research data
- 28. Any questions? Ask now, or email us on researchsupport@it.ox.ac.uk Keeping on top of your research data
- 29. Rights and re-use This slideshow is part of a series of research data management training resources prepared by the IT Services Research Support Team at the University of Oxford Parts of this slideshow draw on material produced as part of the Oxford-based DaMaRO Project, and on resources produced by the PrePARe Project With the exception of clip art used with permission from Microsoft, and commercial logos and trademarks, the slideshow is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike License Within the terms of this licence, we actively encourage sharing, adaptation, and re-use of this material Keeping on top of your research data
Editor's Notes
- The first question to address is what the term ‘data’ actually refers to. Definitions vary, and to some extent, what counts as data will depend on the field of study. For many people, their initial association with the word ‘data’ will be numerical information (statistics, spreadsheets, or experimental results, for example), or perhaps the contents of highly structured information sources such as relational databases.However, data is far from being limited to these. Other examples include:Textual sources (literary or historical works that are being analysed, or interview transcripts)Websites (including all sorts of sites such as social media sites, as well as established academic sources)Works of art and other imagesAudio files (e.g. oral history, recordings of interviews or focus groups)VideosEmailsComputer source codeBooksPapersCatalogues, concordances and indexes The Digital Curation Centre suggests that data is “A reinterpretable representation of information in a formalized manner suitable for communication, interpretation, or processing.”Image montage adapted from PrePARe Project slideshow ‘What is data?”: http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/dataman/training.html
- A very broad definition – such as ‘any information you use in your research’ – works well for thinking about data management: it helps make sure you don’t miss out something important!Whatever your area of research is, you will be dealing with data in one form or another. Bear in mind that not all data is digital: print resources, handwritten notes, tape recordings, and hard copies of images may also be important sources.In addition to the data you collect or generate and analyse as part of a research project, it’s also worth thinking about the data you will create. This might include very structured collections of information, such as a relational database – or it might be something much more informal, such as a file of your own notes, summaries you create for your own reference, or a list of items to be examined.Image montage adapted from PrePARe Project slideshow ‘What is data?”: http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/dataman/training.html
- Image credit: Microsoft clip art.
- Note that the policy uses a specific definition of research data as the information that supports or validates research outputs. The policy only applies explicitly to data in this category – however, it’s still well worth thinking about the management of data construed more broadly, both from the perspective of making life easier for yourself, and because you may produce data that isn’t needed to back up an output from this particular project, but which nevertheless might be of use if shared with other researchers.The policy outlines two broad types of responsibility that researchers haveThe first of these is about data integrity – data should be correct and well storedThe second is about data sharing – as far as is reasonably possible, data should be made available for other to use
- A data management plan is, as the name suggests, a document which outlines how data will be managed over the course of a project.One may be created when a project is still in the initial planning stages, as part of a funding application (this may be a requirement), or when the project is in the process of getting underwayIt’s common for there to be more than one version of a plan: an initial outline might be produced for the funding application, then fleshed out if the application is successfulThe plan gives details of what sort of data the project expects to be dealing with, and what will be done with it. This might include:A description of the type of data that will be used and where it will come from – how it will be created, or where it will be obtained from if pre-existing datasets are being usedHow the data will be stored and kept safe during the projectWhat plans there are for preserving the data after the end of the project, and for sharing it with other researchers
- The Digital Curation Centre is a national service providing advice and resources to researchers and their institutions. Although their primary focus is (as their name suggests) on longer-term curation and preservation of research data, they offer information relating to the whole data lifecycle.One particularly helpful resource is their online data management planning tool. When building a plan, you can select a template which reflects the requirements of your particular funding body.
- Many potential difficulties or concerns regarding data sharing can be alleviated by forward planning.If your research involves human subjects (e.g. in interviews or surveys), it’s worth thinking about the consent you ask them for, and whether they are happy for their data (perhaps in an anonymised form): it’s much easier to ask about this at the beginning of the process than try to do it retrospectively. The UK Data Archive provide some example consent forms.If you’re using third party data which has restrictions on its use, and will be combining this with new data that you’re gathering, it’s worth making sure that you keep separate copies of each of these.
- It’s tempting to assume that you will remember everything relevant, but it’s surprisingly easy to forget crucial information. If you come back to a set of source materials or some notes you made in a few months time, will you still be able to make sense of them? It’s important to ensure you’ve recorded all the necessary contextual information.It’s also worth thinking about your organizational system. When you only have a small amount of material, it’s easy to keep track of it. But if you don’t put a proper system in place early on, it’s easy to become overwhelmed – and the time and effort required to go back and sort everything out at that point will be much higher.Keeping proper records also means that other people will be able to understand what you’ve done and why. It’s a good idea to include information about why you did your research, how it fits into other contemporary research, or follows on from previous work, as well as explaining your methods and analytical techniques. Slide adapted from PrePARe Project slideshow “Explain It”: http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/dataman/training.html
- An ideal filename is concise yet informative. Ideally, you should be able to tell what’s in a file without opening itThe order of elements in a filename will also usually make a difference to the order of files within a folder, so a bit of planning can help ensure similar items are grouped together. Using the year-month-date format at the beginning of a filename makes it easy to sort files into chronological order. (The date that a file was created and last edited will often be recorded automatically, but you may sometimes want to associate a file with a date that is neither of these (e.g. when a particular meeting happened).)You can also force a particular order by adding a number to the start of a filename, or by adding a leading underscore to a file you want to appear at the top of the list. Filenames can also be used to record version information, so you can be sure you’re using the most recent one
- The Research Skills Toolkit website provides an overview of lots of useful software and services, plus other tools and resources for researchers. It includes a substantial section on managing information. The Toolkit team also holds a series of hands-on workshops each year.The site provides a guide to software, tools, University services, and other things that are useful to know about. There’s a substantial section on information management.The site is hosted on WebLearn, and you’ll need to log in using your SSO credentials – the same username and password you use for Nexus email.
- The IT Learning Programme offers an extensive range of IT coursesThese cover learning how to use specific pieces of software, IT-related skills (such as database design or programming), and how to make use of new technologies (such as social media or podcasting)The ITLP Portfolio website offers the course materials which you can use for self-study, and access to a range of other related resources
- IT Services has a team of people who provide support to researchers. They can assist with various aspects of the technical side of a research project throughout the project lifecycle – planning, setting up, doing the work, and what happens at the end of the project. If you need some help setting up a database, building a website, or working out where and how to store your data, the Research Support Team may be able to help.The earlier in the research process you seek advice, the better – preferably while things are still in the planning stages.You can find more information on the team’s website, http://blogs.it.ox.ac.uk/acit-rs-team/about/, or by emailing researchsupport@it.ox.ac.uk
- A new University service which will become available later this year is ORDS – the Online Research Database Service. It’s designed to allow academic researchers to create relational databases – so it’s a tool that might be used as an alternative to something like Microsoft Access or FileMaker Pro.The service uses cloud storage – so rather than your database being stored on your own computer, it’s hosted on a server, and you access it via a Web interface. This means you can access it from any computer with Internet access, and also has the advantage of meaning back up is taken care of automatically, without you needing to worry about itThe system is also set up to make collaboration – with people both in and outside Oxford – easy. All members of a project team can access the same version of the database, so there are no worries about whether you’re working with the latest version.If they wish to do so, the service will also allow users to make their databases publicly available. This might happen at the end of a project – or you might want to publish a specific sub-set of the data to accompany a research publication.For the longer term, if ORDS isn’t the most appropriate long-term home for your data, the system will be set up to allow easy transfer to the University’s new data archive (DataBank – more of that later) or elsewhere.ORDS will ultimately be a paid-for service. However, the service is currently looking to recruit early adopters, who will get to use the service free of charge for the duration of one research project (of negotiable length), in return for providing some feedback on the system. If you’d be interested in finding out more, please email ords@it.ox.ac.uk
- Losing crucial research material is the stuff of nightmares… but nightmares come true sometimes. This is a genuine poster from a pub in Cambridge [the picture has only been altered to straighten it, change the contrast to make it easier to read, and remove some of the details, e.g. the address of the pub and the person’s contact information]You might think ‘Ah, but I would take more care of my laptop/external hard-drive/back up disks’, but sometimes things are out of your control – fires, floods, and burglaries can all deprive you of your hard-won research data. If you’re unlucky enough to be the victim of one of these, Slide adapted from PrePARe Project slideshow “What is data?”: http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/dataman/training.html
- Back up is probably one data management thing that most people are aware that they should be doing, or doing better. It’s actually a good idea to have more than one back up copy, particularly of important and/or irreplaceable material; this is part of the LOCKSS principle (Lots Of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe). It’s also a good idea to keep these copies in different places, for example you might keep a copy of some material in a cloud-based service (WARNING: if your research deals with sensitive data you may not be able to do this), on an external hard-drive or on DVDs/CDs. Consider asking a friend/colleague or family member to look after one copy, or keep one copy at home and one in your office, so your material is physically in separate places. This minimises the risk of data loss in the case of flood, fire or theft. But remember that back-up isn’t the same as preservation – it’s just one aspect of it! If you have made a back-up copy of your data, that means you now have two copies in total to look after. But the good news is that this greatly reduces the risks to your data, and goes a long way to helping it stay safe over time.Slide adapted from PrePARe Project slideshow “Store it Safely”: http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/dataman/training.htmlImage credits: Microsoft clip art
- Oxford has a central back-up and archiving service called HFS, provided via IT Services. (You may also sometimes hear people refer to this as TSM – this is the name of the client software used to run back-ups.)The service is free to University staff and postgraduates.You can set up the system to perform automated back-ups of computers connected to the University network (these usually happen overnight). If that’s not convenient, you can run a manual back-up. (If you’ve had trouble with automated back-ups, contact the HFS team and they should be able to help.)Three copies of your data will be made. One of these is stored outside Oxford, so even if there were to be a flood or a fire at IT Services, your data would still be safe.
- The University of Oxford has a central Research Data Management website, which provides a central information source on this subject. A copy of the University Policy on the Management of Research Data and Records can be downloaded from here.At time of writing, the website is being redesigned – the new version should be launched shortly.
- Research Data MANTRA is a series of free interactive online training modules covering key research data management issues.The modules are designed for postgraduates and early career researchers. The course describes itself as being particularly geared towards people working in geosciences, social and political sciences, and clinical psychology, but don’t be put off by this – in fact much of the course material is relevant to all research disciplines.