Facilitate Open Science Training for European Research 
Why is data management important?  
And how can I get started? 
10 July 2015 
Pauline Ward 
Data Library 
University of Edinburgh 
Research Data Management  
• Research data management (RDM) is caring for, 
facilitating access to, preserving and adding value to 
research data throughout its lifecycle. 
• Data management is part of good research practice.  
• Good research needs good data. 
• Take good care of your data, and it will take care of you! 
 
Activities involved in  
Research Data Management 
• Data management planning 
• Creating data  
• Documenting data 
• Storage and backup 
• Sharing data 
• Preserving data 
 
Activities involved in  
Research Data Management 
Why manage your data well? 
• So you can find and understand it when needed. 
• To avoid unnecessary duplication. 
• So you can finish your PhD/MSc!  
• To validate results if required. 
• So your research is visible and has impact. 
• To get credit when others cite your work. 
 
Why manage your data well? 
“Data management…  if you’re getting public funding to 
collect data, you have to leave data in a way that is 
usable for other people unless there [are] very good 
reasons not to do that. And you won’t leave it in ways 
that are usable for other people if you haven’t had good 
procedures for documenting it as you’ve gathered it. So 
even if you’re all right, because it fits your purpose, 
you’re diminishing its public value …” 
 
Professor Lynn Jamieson, Sociology, University 
of Edinburgh 
 
Why manage your data well? 
“I think people often imagine secondary data analysis to 
be a highly planned, predictable activity. In practice it's 
rarely like that. It's fairly rare to plan to do something, to 
do it, and it works the way you wanted it to work first 
time. … It's important to log what you do as you do it each 
step of the way.” 
 
Professor John MacInnes, Sociology, University 
of Edinburgh 
 
Why manage your data well? 
“..having a clear data management plan in research, … I think 
it is very helpful to know what you want from your data. So to 
sit down and think about: 
 
 What sort of data do I need?  
 Where will I get it from?  
 What might be the risks or problems of me getting that 
data?  
 
..and to then be able to write down how you're going to make 
use of that data can be very helpful because you can refer back 
to it back later as you are going through things.” 
 
Ellie Bates, 3rd year PhD student (Geosciences, University 
of Edinburgh, looking at patterns of vandalism) 
 
Drivers for data sharing 
ESRC Research data policy 
• “We believe that a structured approach to data 
management results in better quality data that is ready 
to deposit for further sharing.”  
 
• “Planning how you will manage your research data 
should begin early on in the research process ...” 
 
ESRC Research data policy 
• “Data are the main assets of economic and social 
research. We recognise publicly-funded research data as 
valuable, long-term resources that, where practical, 
must be made available for secondary scientific 
research.” 
 
• “The data must be made available for re-use or 
archiving with the ESRC data service providers within 
three months of the end of the grant.” 
 
• “Whilst not compulsory, ESRC-funded students are 
strongly encouraged to offer copies of data created or 
repurposed during their PhD for deposit at the UK Data 
Service as it is considered good research practice.” 
University of Edinburgh 
Research Data Management Policy 
“All new research proposals [from date of adoption] must 
include research data management plans or protocols that 
explicitly address data capture, management, integrity, 
confidentiality, retention, sharing and publication.” 
 
 
Creating a Data Management Plan 
MANTRA 
is a free online course in Research Data Management, 
created by the Data Library team at the University of 
Edinburgh 
has a module to guide you through the process of 
creating and updating your Data Management Plan 
has a Word template for your Plan. 
 
 
Useful links 
•MANTRA 
datalib.edina.ac.uk/mantra  
datalib.edina.ac.uk/mantra/Data_management_plan_template_MANTRA.docx 
 
•Digital Curation Centre (DCC): Data 
management plans 
www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/data-management-plans 
 
•Economic and Social Research Council: 
Research Data Policy 
(March 2015) 
www.esrc.ac.uk/about-esrc/information/data-policy.aspx 
 
What questions do you have?