Self-training

General resources

Contents
  • Getting started

    • DoraNum
    • INIST courses
    • Summary sheets
    • OpenAire guides
    • MITI Atelier Données guide
    • Libguides
    • E-learning
    • Bootcamp
    • 10 tips for structuring and opening your data
    • How to open data for access
    • Videos
  • Improving skills

    • On-line courses from the University of Edinburgh
    • On-line courses from Research Data Netherlands
    • On-line courses from the UK Data Service
    • Workshops from the MIT libraries
    • Supports from the British Universities consortium
    • Get to know the Eudat European tools
  • Game
  • Ideas from MOOCs
  • Open Science

Many organizations have developed resources to introduce research staff to data management.

GETTING STARTED

DoraNum

Led by the Urfist network and INIST-CNRS, this project has produced a publication on the platform DoraNum (Données de la Recherche : Apprentissage NUMérique à la gestion et au partage) [Research Data: Digital learning on management and sharing].Nine comprehensive presentations of subjects including  challenges and benefits, legal aspects (ethics, scientific integrity), data management plan, metadata, lasting access codes, repositories, storage and archiving, data papers and data journals, access and visualization. A variety of content is used to present each topic simply, quickly and thoroughly. Each topic features a summary file, a video (“the minute”), files (“the essentials” text or video) and a self-evaluation quiz. An interactive curriculum on data management has also been developed. 

INIST courses

In “Une introduction à la gestion et au partage des données de la recherche” [An introduction to the management and sharing of research data] developed in 2014, INIST-(CNRS) provides a concise presentation on the basic notions of data management (issues, describing, publishing data) and best practices (life-cycle, data management plan). Quizzes and exercises are also available.

Summary sheets

Cambridge University libraries offer guides with questions and answers about creating, organizing and sharing data and electronic laboratory notebooks.

The University of Delft also provides summaries and FAQs.

The University of Amsterdam has set up a Research Data Management service with sections offering very clear summaries.

The DataOne platform (Data Observation Network for Earth), specialized in environmental sciences, provides numerous files of best practices following data life-cycle steps with a “Best Practices Primer” guide designed for beginners. Relevant files can be found using key words in the search engine.

The OpenAire guides
MITI Atelier Données guide

Proposed by the inter-network working group “Atelier Données” of MITI, this guide is addressed to anyone wishing to learn about research data management, and its aim is to help the reader to analyse his needs and find solutions among the variety of communications and good practices presented.

Libguides

The University of Oxford has published libguides (2). Note in particular, courses offered by the IT Services Research Support Team.

Several libguides designed by the University Vrije of Amsterdam deal with the life-cycle of research from setting up a project to data storage, including collection and analysis.

The libguide from the University of Princeton offers testimonies featuring both “horror stories” and “success stories” about data management.

E-learning

The University of Geneva has set up an e-learning platform: “Research Data Management E-Learning Platform” (available in French), developed as part of the Train2Dacar project and supported by the  program “Scientific Information: access, processing and backing-up”. The first four basic modules (basic principles, data life-cycle path, re-use, publication, and services) are suitable to all users. Objectives and work time are specified in each module.

Bootcamp

The University of Bristol offers a quiz tutorial. With questions such as:

What is the useful life span of a hard disk? Should a data management plan be developed before producing data? What is the citation rate of publications with data sets?

10 tips for structuring and opening your data

On LibraryCarpentry, (3) The University of Utrecht publishes a resource  about applying FAIR principles.

A manual on data opening

The on-line manual Open Data Handbook, created by the OpenKnowledge
Foundation includes an open data guide with case studies and numerous resources.

Videos

The University of Santa Cruz has published video tutorials “Practical Data Management” covering all aspects of data management.

FOR IMPROVING SKILLS

Several resources are available to develop thorough knowledge about data management.

The University of Edinburgh’s <strong>on-line courses</strong>

Mantra Research Data Management (MANTRA is an on-line course created by the University of Edinburgh). It is suitable for doctoral students, researchers, scientific and IT professionals. This well-respected course has been an model for many other initiatives and offers videos, feedback, exercises and best practices elements. Different topics available:

From the Mantra program, a resource available in Zenodo provides an overview of Research Data Management in four short modules (4): introduction, finding data, working with research data, planning data management. Two specialists and trainers in data management, Sarah Jones and Steve Diggs, also make their summer school teaching aids available (5)CODATA RDA Research Data Science Summer School Teaching Materials”: RDM (Research Data Management), DMP (DataManagementPlan), Fair Data, How fair is your data? etc.

On-line courses from Research Data Netherlands

Essentials 4 Data Support, produced by Research Data Netherlands, offers three types of very interesting and comprehensive courses: 

The “Online only formula (no registration required)”: choose your organization and follow courses depending on needs and priorities. The “Online only with user profile” formula: anyone can open an account and follow the course free-of-charge, with additional exercises and the possibility to make comments.

The third method: “Full course (on-line + classroom learning with certificate)” for a fee of $895. Certificate course. This link provides additional training resources, blogs, Twitter accounts, etc.

On-line courses from the UK Data Service

The British data service offers a general education program on data management: “Data management training resources(6). Several exercises are available: legal questions, data description, etc. The service also schedules webinars. See the program here. The service published a second edition of the work Managing and Sharing Research Data in 2014: a guide to good practices. Content is available in html form here. It follows the life-cycle of research data with chapters featuring videos, case studies, check-lists, tools, templates, exercises, and internet resources. Another web site is also available.  A Youtube channel features 30 specialized videos. Subscribe to receive news and updates. Several guides are also available.

Workshops from the MIT libraries

MIT’s libraries have set up a support service with thematic workshops plus teaching aids. Amongst these: Quick and dirty data management: the five things you should absolutely be doing with your data now, a method for organizing files and advice for improving version management of your data sets.

How to FAIR ?

How to FAIR ? is a website filled with resources about data management and FAIR principles. It is published by Danish universities and supported by the Research Data Alliance. The website displays many researchers interviews and contains many sections such as file format, metadata, licences, IDs… Concrete examples will also allow you to have a better understanding of data management. A short video presents the website’s goal. All of the website’s content (text, interview recording, pictures…) are accessible on Zenodo and are reusable.

Teaching aids from a consortium of British Universities

RDMRose is a project from the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York aimed at producing teaching and continuous education materials for Research Data Management (RDM) for IT professionals. Extremely comprehensive exercises and training aids are also available.

Get to know the Eudat European tools

The EUDAT Training program is a training service for communities and researchers offering numerous webinars on topics such as DMPs, metadata, etc. It underlines the role of Eudat, support for research infrastructures and the services they offer (such as B2Share, B2Find, B2Access, B2Safe). The Event and Media section includes six webinars and a gallery of videos with experiences. Several case studies related to research projects are also described. 

Game

A board game developed by INIST and DoraNum on data management: GopenDoRe, a card game in four parts – Management, Analysis, Dissemination and Archiving. 

MOOC concepts

Reproducible research: methodological principles for transparent science” is the theme chosen by three researchers (Arnaud Legrand, Christophe Pouzat and Konrad Hinsen) for their MOOC launched in March 2020. Tools such as Markdown, Jupyter, Rstudio and Org-mode are covered.

OpenScience MOOC develops MOOCs on open science including two currently under development about research data addressing reproducibility and opening data.

Research Data Management and Sharing is a MOOC developed by the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and the University of Edinburgh. It is available on the Coursera platform.

Open Science

For more information, the FOSTER on-line learning platform features multiple European training resources for people wanting to discover open science and acquire skills.

  1. OpenAIRE (Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe) aims to support open science in Europe with a platform providing access to research publications and data.

  2. A libguide is a content publishing tool for creating thematic guides. It is a tool widely used in libraries.
  3. LibraryCarpentry is a community of trainers in libraries and data centers who make teaching aids available for self-learning or for providing training courses.
  4. EDINA and Data Library. (2017, November). Research Data Management overview (Version 1.2). Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1062722.
  5. Sarah Jones, &amp; Steve Diggs. (2018, October). Research Data Management sessions. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1451961.

  6. Louise Corti, Veerle Van den Eynden, Libby Bishop, Matthew Woollard, Managing and Sharing Research Data, A Guide to Good Practice, 2014, Second Edition, Sage Publications.