Data Horrors

Research Data Management
Author

Esther Plomp, Andrea Chiarelli, Data Hazards (image)

Published

January 4, 2023

Examples of data horror stories:

The TU Delft Architecture building on fire

The TU Delft Architecture building on fire

An advertisement for a cash reward if someone finds a lost backpack. Among details regarding the bag the text says \"The external drive is very important to me as it contains five years of research data which are crucial for my PhD thesis!

An addition to the backup rule from Alex Chan, who had their adjustable height desk crash and their IMAc planted into the backup drive setting on the same desk.

A tweet saying "give me a horror story from your speciality in five words or less" with Shawn Graham's answer to this: "is this the current version"

80 percent of scientific data from publicly-funded research is lost within two decades. Headline from december 19, 2013

Most scientific research data from the 1990s is lost forever. A new study has found that as much as 80 percent of the raw scientific data collected by researchers in the early 1990s is gone forever, mostly because no one knows where to find it. By Danielle Wiener-Bronner. 2013.

Can you still publish if you have lost the original data? I have recently completed a MD project and wriitin it up as a paper. My computer has since been stolen and I have lost the MD simulations (backup was taken too). Would the paper still be able to be published?

years of data lost in fire at university

Forgotten collections - a (physical) data horror story

Data transfer in shopping bags

Headline: Fire destroys top research centre. With a picture of a building and a lot of smoke.

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