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Research Data Management: Introduction

Bringing together University resources and services to facilitate researchers in the production of high quality data.

What are Research Data? 

Research data are information collected to be examined and considered, and to serve as a basis for reasoning, discussion or calculation. It is used as a primary source to support technical or scientific enquiry, research, scholarship, or artistic activity, is used as evidence in the research process, and/or is commonly accepted in the research community as necessary to validate research findings and results. - UCD Research Data Management Policy 

Why do you need to manage your research data? 

Research data are a valuable resource that often requires a great deal of time and money to create. There are a number of very good reasons why research data should be managed in an appropriate and timely manner. 

1. Basic quality assurance within the project

  • Increase research efficiency. Good research data management will enable you to organise your files and data for access and analysis without difficulty. Well managed data also helps individual researchers track the course of their own progress.

  • Facilitate data security and minimise the risk of data loss. Use of robust and appropriate data storage facilities will help to reduce the loss of your data through accidents, or neglect.
2. Reproducibility of the research findings

  • Ensure research integrity and validation of results. Accurate and complete research data are an essential part of the evidence necessary for evaluating and validating research results and for reconstructing the events and processes leading to them.

3. Re-use of the data by other researchers

  • Ensure wider dissemination and increased impact. Research data, if correctly formatted, described and attributed, will have significant ongoing value and can continue to have impact long after the completion of a research project. 

  • Enable research continuity through secondary data use. Good research data management will permit new and innovative research to be built on existing information and prevent duplication of effort.

4. Funder Requirements 

  • Additionally research data should be managed to ensure compliance with a funding agency’s requirements. An increasing number of funding bodies request or require that their funding recipients create and follow plans for managing data (DMP's), storing or preserving it in the long term, and sharing some, or all data products with the public.
Policies related to research and research data management 

 

The Library's Research Essentials @ UCD Library programme offers an extensive range of training sessions and workshops (open to all staff and students) on a range of practical topics to help support your research including: publishing and impact, open access, research data management, geospatial data, data visualisation, and systematic reviews.

Full details and booking can be found on the UCD Library Training Calendar or by clicking on the image above.

UCD Library Data Management Checklist November 2021

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