6 Data Management
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this chapter, learners will:
- Understand the terms research data, research data management, and data management plan
- List some common elements of a data management plan and describe how they could be used to structure an open education data collection project
Important Terminology
- Research data management: A general term that describes what researchers do to structure, organize, and maintain data before, during, and after doing research. Anyone who collects or uses data for the purpose of doing research is doing research data management. Creating a data file and deciding where to save it, renaming a data file, or moving it are all research data management activities (Thompson, 2023).
- Research data lifecycle: Typically depicted as a cyclical process, the research data lifecycle highlights the main stages of planning, collecting, processing, analyzing, preserving, and sharing research data. Researchers start by planning their research. They then collect, process, and clean data to get them into shape for analysis and analyze them to form conclusions about their research. Finally, they take steps to preserve the data for the long term and make them available for others to use and study (Thompson, 2023).
Figure 1. Research data lifecycle. Credit: Kristi Thompson’s (2023) The Basics: An Introduction To Research Data Management, which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence
- Data management plans (DMPs): A formal description of what a researcher plans to do with their data from collection through eventual preservation or deletion. DMPs are intended to help researchers manage data across all phases of the research data lifecycle, from collection to sharing. They are often described as “living documents” that should be updated as needed while researchers work with their data (Thompson, 2023).
The Data Management Plan
Why use a DMP?
A data management plan (DMP) can save you and your research team time. It helps the research team think through and work with their data more effectively, and shows how data will be collected, stored, and preserved (Thompson, 2023).
A DMP is helpful whenever data is being collected or stored, to help plan how data will be processed and analyzed, to reduce redundancy and lost effort, and to ensure best practices are followed.
Components of a DMP
A DMP can include a variety of elements. The below components are based on sections in the DMP Assistant tool. In Canada, researchers at post-secondary institutions have access to the DMP Assistant tool. This web-based tool asks users a series of questions about their data and research plans, with contextual help and guidance on how to answer each question.
Responsibilities and Resourcing
This section of the DMP describes the following components of the project:
- Who is the research lead or principal investigator?
- Who is responsible for collecting and managing the data?
- Who a