Data Management for Research

Data management is the process of creating organized, documented, accessible, and reusable research data. Simply put, it's taking care of your data! It helps with research organization and comprehensibility, making onboarding to projects easier and allowing for ease in communicating research results to colleagues and the public. Research data management helps improve research workflows to make them more resilient, efficient, maintainable, and reproducible.

Data management can be self-care for you and your research! The actions taken today to organize your research data will help future you feel more in control of your research project, and make it easier to share your results with others. While it is good to implement data management techniques as early as you can in your research, we understand that there may be many barriers to doing so, including a lack of extra time to devote to it. We're here to help no matter what stage you are at!

Taking the extra time now to manage your data may save you time later on in your research, along with the following benefits:

• Meet requirements of funding agencies, who often require data management plans when applying for grants
• Ensure research integrity and replication 
• Ensure your research data and records are accurate, complete, authentic, and reliable
• Increase your own research efficiency - the less time you have to spend cleaning up data messes and deciphering your data, the more time you have to boost your own research agenda!
• Save time and resources in the long run
• Enhance data security and minimize the risk of data loss
• Prevent duplication of effort by enabling others to use your data
• Comply with practices conducted in industry and commerce