Research Data Management

If you’re doing research, you probably do have some kind of research data. Consider how the Tri-Agencies talk about the relationship between research material and research data:

Research materials serve as the object of an investigation, whether scientific, scholarly, literary or artistic, and are used to create research data. Research materials are transformed into data through method or practice. Examples of research materials may include bio-samples for a geneticist, primary sources in an archival fonds for an historian, or a school of zebrafish for a biologist.

Examples of research data corresponding to these materials include gene sequence data, chronological analyses of ideas and contributions, and data on the behaviour of the zebrafish under certain conditions, respectively.[1]

In most current discussions of research data in the context of research data management, what is meant is ‘digital research data’: that is, data that are processed, analyzed, stored, and deposited or shared (when appropriate) in a digital format. Analog research data - i.e., data in a physical form, whether on paper or another type of material – should also be considered where appropriate, with the understanding that they may be more difficult to deposit in a repository or to share widely.

In some disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, and fine arts, it may be more difficult to determine what your data are. In this case, think about what you as the researcher create between the material that you’re working on or with – e.g., a book, an artwork, a performance, an interview - and what you publish or disseminate as your own work. What you create in that intervening space may be research data: e.g., organized notes, different types of visualizations, themes that you’ve coded, transcripts, video recordings or images, audio recordings.

[1] “1c: How are research materials related to research data?”, Frequently Asked Questions: Tri-Agency Research Data Management Policy, last accessed February 3, 2022 at https://www.science.gc.ca/eic/site/063.nsf/eng/h_97609.html#1c

Depositing data means placing them into a digital repository, such as PRISM Dataverse, the Federated Research Data Repository, or a wide range of other repositories. Staff of the repository will work with you to ensure that the data are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Retrievable (the FAIR principles).

Sharing data means making your data available for use by others, in a general sense. Depositing data in a repository can be one way of sharing data, but it’s not the only way. You could, for example, provide data to others on request, or post them on a website.

Not necessarily! There are a number of ways to make your data available to others without making them openly accessible to anyone. For example, some repositories will allow you to restrict who can access datasets (e.g., making them only available on request, or to people with institutional e-mail addresses). Having a clear data availability statement in your publications or on your website can also let people know that your data are available.

Absolutely! Including good RDM practices in your work can make a big difference in how efficient and effective your research is. The following are just a few examples of RDM practices that can help you throughout the course of a research project: 

• Creating consistent and transparent file and folder names, so it’s easy for you to find what you need. 

• Including versioning information such as dates or stages of processing in your file and folder names, so you know what (and where!) the most current version of your work is. 

• Creating clear documentation of data collection and analysis processes for yourself and your research. team, so that you do things consistently and can onboard new team members more easily. 

• Including robust metadata that describes your data well, so that you and others can understand it more easily in the future.  

• Backing up your data regularly and in multiple places, to prevent against data loss. 

It depends on the conditions under which you collected your data.

If you’ve collected data from human participants during your research, and your participants signed a consent form, then what they consented to in the form will determine whether you can share your data. If they didn’t consent to having particular types of data being shared, or to having their data shared in a particular way, you may not be able to share it. Consult the Panel on Research Ethics’ Guidance on Depositing Existing Data in Public Repositories for more information.

If you’re working with partners outside the university – for example, partners from industry, community organizations, or Indigenous communities – your agreements with them will determine whether research data can be shared.

If you know at the beginning of a project that you’ll want to share your data at the end of the project, it’s important to ensure that you put the right conditions in place that will allow you to share your data. Work with your research partners, the Research Ethics Boards, and/or UCalgary’s research-focused legal teams in the Research Services Office or the Cumming School of Medicine to ensure that you have language in your consent forms and/or agreements that will allow you to deposit and/or otherwise share your data.

Research data repositories are online services that provide long-term preservation for research data and metadata, and make them available for discovery and use. There are a wide range of research data repositories:

• Some repositories are general, such as PRISM Data at UCalgary or the Federated Research Data Repository; others only accept data from specific research domains or disciplines.
• Some repositories require you to make your data open access, while others will allow you to control who gets access to your data.
• Some repositories charge fees, while others will provide a basic level of service for free.

Good data repositories will

• Have a mandate and plan for data preservation,
• Offer information about the data set that enables people to discover and learn about the data,
• Provide potential data users with either direct access or information on access conditions, and
• Ensure each data set has a persistent identifier (PID) that will always take people to information about the dataset and can be cited in publications.

To find a research data repository that’s right for your work, talk to your subject librarian, or use the tools and resources available on Libraries and Cultural Resources’ RDM Libguide.

The Tri-Agency's data deposit requirement is focused on digital research data: the Policy states in section 3.3 that "Grant recipients are required to deposit into a digital repository all digital research data [emphasis ours], metadata and code that directly support the research conclusions in journal publications and pre-prints that arise from agency-supported research." The Policy is also related to the 2016 Statement of Principles on Digital Data Management, which is focused entirely on digital research data.

So, while you should describe in your data management plan (DMP) how you’ll manage your physical research data, you’ll only be required to deposit your digital research data into a digital repository.