Skip to Main Content Carnegie Mellon University Libraries

Data Management for Research

A checklist to help you with you research data management
Research Data Management Checklist

Research Data Management Checklist

Plan & Design
Write a Data Management Plan
Define Roles & Responsibilities
Onboard project members
Choose documentation standards
Collect & Create
Choose file naming conventions
Organize your folders/files hierarchically
Use version control
Create README files
Analyze & Collaborate
Use an electronic notebook
Use collaborative file sharing
Keep a copy of your raw data
Validate, clean and tidy data
Evaluate & Archive
Determine data ownership
Evaluate data retention
Anonymize sensitive data
Curate & archive your data
Store & Manage
Determine data types & size
Store your data: 3-2-1 rule
Evaluate data security level
Manage paper & physical samples
Share & Disseminate
Get an ORCiD ID
Share with collaborators
Publish data in a repository
Link to reagents & protocols (SI)
Access & Reuse
Apply creative commons license
Transfer access & knowledge
Evaluate data for reproducibility