Research Data Management

Effective RDM throughout your research is essential for enhancing the impact of your research; demonstrating its scientific integrity; and complying with legal requirements, codes of conduct and demands of funding bodies. RDM is applicable to almost all forms of research because data are more than just numbers on spreadsheets; rather, they are any source of information that are used to answer a research question.

In the modern era of open science, replication crises and the need for research transparency, research data are expected to be made findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) during your research. Well-conceived RDM is necessary for achieving FAIR data whilst ensuring that legal considerations have been sufficiently addressed. RDM also helps you to assess whether the planned research is feasible within legal, ethical and security frameworks, and to determine what technical support is necessary to carry out your research.

Whilst preparing your research proposal, you will need to write a DMP, because RDM will impact upon both your budget (in terms of storage and staffing) and your time management planning.

To assist researchers with RDM, VU Amsterdam has a Research Data Management policy in place, as do all the faculties (to be found on the same page).

There is also research data support on both a central and faculty level, offered by research data management professionals and privacy champions, who, together with IT, Legal and Privacy professionals, make up the Network Research Data Support (NRDS).

Data Management Plan (DMP)

A DMP is required by most research funders. A DMP assists in determining the most efficient, cost-effective, technically feasible and legally/ethically appropriate method through which to answer your research question. It also helps to identify any legal, ethical and security concerns that may need to be addressed to protect research subjects and the data.

Whilst the focus for most funders in these plans is on how you will make the data FAIR, you should also use your DMP at this stage to estimate both the budget you require from your funder and how long the various stages of your research will take.

VU Amsterdam provides an online tool called DMPonline that researchers use to write a DMP with guidance. VU Amsterdam has created a VU Amsterdam template DMP that has been approved for use by ZonMw and NWO.

After you have completed your DMP, you should have a research data steward review it prior to submitting your grant proposal.

Taking care of your research data

Most funders are focused on researchers achieving FAIR data, which often means they want to know how you will make it possible to share the data with other interested parties. This is an important goal that requires you to consider various legal and ethical implications of sharing your data, especially if the data pertains to human research subjects. Although you do not need to resolve all these concerns during the proposal stage, it is important that you identify these concerns. This is especially the case if they will impact upon your informed consent process, as you want to get your research started on the right foot. You should aim to make your data FAIR to the extent that the legal and ethical framework of your research permits. In many instances, legal and ethical discussions involve advice from experts who require a fair amount of time to review your situation, so the sooner you identify the concern, the better.

Moreover, it is imperative that the data are kept safe during your research, which means that you need to identify any security concerns during the proposal planning stage so that you can choose appropriate data storage and data protection options. These choices will also impact upon your budget as well as your choice of staff.

From question to collecting Data

When others make their data FAIR, you can reuse the existing data to answer your research question, which saves time, money and effort as you do not need to collect new data.

If you do collect new data, then you must think about what methods to use to collect those data and whether these methods are feasible. There may be legal or technical reasons that prevent you from using a planned method of data collection, as discussed in “Taking Care of Your Research Data”. So, by planning with RDM and a DMP you can identify these issues and assess what alternatives are available to you.

If you have a good idea of what your data should ultimately look like to answer your research question, then you can assess the best ways to collect that information. Alternatively, you may identify how complex the data cleaning process will be, thus giving you an indication of staffing requirements.

Finally, to achieve FAIR data, a lot of documentation is required. You may not yet know at this stage of your research what that documentation will be, but by writing a DMP and discussing it with an RDM expert, you can start thinking about what documentation should be maintained during your research.