Importance of RDM

Pre-course work

Estimated time: 60-70 minutes

At the end of this module you should be able to:

  • Recognize the importance of research data management
  • Explain why RDM is relevant for reproducibility and re-use of data
Activities before the session!
  • Watch the Presentation on ‘Why is RDM important’?
  • Read (Markowetz 2015): Five selfish reasons to work reproducibly OR Watch the presentation (50 min)
  • Watch the exact instruction challenge video.

How scientists save important data. Each part of the pie chart says the following: writing it down, .txt. files, weird files with strange acronyms, and in their own memories just before the computer crashes, losing everything.

Image by Errant Science

Why care about RDM?

Why should you be aware of your Research Data Management?

Reflect about what you heard on the video and bring your thoughts and your horror stories to our session.

You can also:

A scientist looking in her cabinet in her office for the data from last year. The cabinet looks quite messy, with open boxes, notes everywhere and a cat sleeping in it.

The Turing Way illustration by Scriberia. CC-BY 4.0. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3332807

Selfish reasons to work reproducibly

Read : (Markowetz 2015) Five selfish reasons to work reproducibly OR Watch the presentation (50 min)

Why care about documentation?

It is important to document your data so that it remains understandable/usable for yourself and also for others. Terminology, methods and steps that you take in an analysis may be obvious to you, but not for your team members/supervisor.

Watch the Exact Instructions Challenge video (7 min) to see what happens when your documentation is insufficient!

References

Markowetz, Florian. 2015. “Five Selfish Reasons to Work Reproducibly.” Genome Biology 16 (1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13059-015-0850-7.