This document discusses research data management at King's College London. It provides statistics on how grants and researchers currently manage data in terms of storage, volume, and plans after projects. Challenges for students and researchers managing data are also presented. The benefits of effective research data management are outlined as ensuring availability, demonstrating relevance, boosting reputation, and more. A table shows the current and ideal activities at each stage of the research process from concept to post-publication. Contact details are provided for the Research Data Manager to assist with data management questions.

1. RESEARCH DATA MANAGEMENT
Veronica Howe, Research Data
Manager, Archives and
Information Management,
Library Services

2. How many grants mentioned RDM in 2011?
<£50,000 £50 - £300,000 >£ 300,000 All
Data
Management
33% 24% 14% 27%
Storage Costs 25% 23% 14% 20%
Data
Expertise
23% 12% 5% 13%

3. Up to 2 GB
28%
Up to 50
GB
43%
More
than
50GB
17%
More than
500GB
6%
More than
1TB
6%
Volume of data generated by project

4. College
storage
45%
Local
desktop
or laptop
64%
External
HD/DVD/
USB 40%
Cloud
17%
Partner
11%
Data storage during project

5. What
funder
wants 23%
Offer to
repository
4%
Offer to
College
Archives
8%
Leave on
existing
storage
73%
Delete 2%
No plans
15%
Plans for data post project

6. Students
“The ethics form asks where I am going to store
my research data - what shall I say?”
“The health statistics dataset I need will cost over
£3,000 in licence fees but I am funded by a
scholarship which only included £750 per year
for research costs – what can I do?”

7. Researchers
“A BMA journal wants me to deposit my data in
a repository in a non-proprietary, open format
but it’s all in NVivo - I'm not sure how to go
about it?”
“The funder requires that research data, and
the project website, remain available when the
funded research centre closes next spring – how
do we do that?”

9. Geoffrey Boulton, http://royalsociety.org/policy/projects/science-public-
enterprise/report/
“Since no journal can spare the
space to publish the avalanche of
data that large-scale scientific
experiments produce, the
published paper has become more
of an advertisement and the
science sits in the underlying data”

10. The benefits of managing research data
Ensures
availability
Demonstrates
continuing relevance
Boosts
reputation
Attracts more investment, collaborators, crowd sourcing
Supports
compliance
Clarifies
ownership
Increases
citations
Facilitates dataset
combination
Encourages
efficiency
Supports good
conduct
Extends impact
Safeguards
investment
Reduces risk
Raises quality

13. Stage of
Academic
Research Process
Data Management
Activities
What happens currently Requirements
Concept and
design
Researchers review data Researchers alerted to funding
opportunities
Establishment of Data Asset Register
Start Up Data management
statements in applications
for funding and ethics
approval
Inconsistent data management
planning
Data management planning embedded
early in research process
Information in different places
(Information Management, Library
Services; IT; Research web pages)
Single web site portal to research
support
College destroys paper files
according to financial regs
Capture core metadata to accompany
research datasets
Data collected,
analysed, tested
Data created, used and
shared
Data managed according to variable
local arrangements/provision and
personal practices
Clarity on existing provision and
charging model for buying additional;
technical support eg database design
Dissemination
and Publication
Conferences, blogs, Open
Access , online and other
publication
IM provides guidance on data
retention; IR supports Open Access
activities
Links to datasets on Pure and new
Research Information Business Systems
Post publication -
selection and
retention of data
Data publicised and
shared; outputs
submitted for REF
Researchers share data on an ad
hoc basis in response to personal
requests; data lost, stored
inconsistently, whereabouts
unknown
Support for coherent data lifecycle
management (from active to deposit in
repository, shareable, useable,
retrievable, accessible, secure disposal,
digital preservation activities; data
reused in future research; archive for
data of long-term value; development
of a sustainable cost recovery model)

16. VERONICA HOWE
RESEARCH DATA MANAGER
ARCHIVES & INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
0207 848 1030
VERONICA.HOWE@KCL.AC.UK
RESEARCH.DATA@KCL.AC.UK