Transcript Practical Help with Managing Data & Applying for Grants Dr Richard R. Plant & Dr Andrew Thompson Data Management Planning & Storage for Psychology project.

Practical Help with
Managing Data &
Applying for Grants
Dr Richard R. Plant & Dr Andrew Thompson
Data Management Planning &
Storage for Psychology project
How can you help me?
• Intro to our new one stop shop website...
• What does a RDM Plan even look like?
• I’m applying for a grant and need a
Research Data Management Plan to apply.
What tools can help me?
• My research council wants me to add this
“metadata” stuff to my data and then share it!
• How do I backup over the short term – any
ideas?
06/11/2015 © The University of Sheffield
Mission statement
The DMSPpsych project will establish a culture of
data management planning, archiving, and ongoing
reuse of data acquired as a result of psychological
research within the Department of Psychology at The
University of Sheffield.
We recognise it is often difficult and time consuming
for the individual, research group or even department
to follow a coordinated approach especially where
there are no local or discipline specific exemplars to
follow.
By tackling these issues at a grass roots level, on a
one-to-one basis, we hope to provide support and
foster an atmosphere of collaboration with regard to
data management.
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Why?
• You will no longer be able to apply for funding unless
you have a data management plan, take better care
of your data and ultimately share it
• Increase your citations by at least 69%
• Increase your chances of further funding and
collaboration
• “Backstop” your research papers – journals are likely
to request datasets (Stapel fraud)
• You might want to reuse your own data!
• Universities need a better organizational memory
• Good for science, good for UK PLC
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Cognitive dissonance?
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Ahhh, that’s better
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That looks bad!
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Fail to plan,
plan to fail
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/regenesis/pictures/
These pictures were taken by Harvey Rutt
06/11/2015 © The University of Sheffield
Data loss will happen to you
• As surely as death and taxes – when & how
• Not just catastrophic events you should worry about:
• Dropping your laptop
• Overwriting data/versioning
• Hard drive failures
• File formats
• Software updates
• Media degradation
(CDR’s, memory sticks,
SSD’s)
• Obsolescence/upgrades
• Poorly described data
(metadata)
• Theft of equipment
• People move on
• Research trends (follow
the money
consequences)
06/11/2015 © The University of Sheffield
How can you help me?
• Intro to our new one stop shop website...
• What does a RDM Plan even look like?
• I’m applying for a grant and need a
Research Data Management Plan to apply.
What tools can help me?
• My research council wants me to add this
“metadata” stuff to my data and then share it!
• How do I backup over the short term – any
ideas?
06/11/2015 © The University of Sheffield
06/11/2015 © The University of Sheffield
Demo
What does a RDM Plan even look like?
06/11/2015 © The University of Sheffield
What things do I need to cover?
Here’s what Wellcome want...
• What data outputs will your research generate and what data will
have value to other researchers? What does a RDM Plan even
look like?
• When will you share the data? My research council wants me to
add this “metadata” stuff to my data and then share it?
• Where will you make the data available?
• How will other researchers be able to access the data?
• Are any limits to data sharing required - for example, to either
safeguard research participants or to gain appropriate intellectual
property protection?
• How will you ensure that key datasets are preserved to ensure
their long-term value?
• What resources will you require to deliver your plan?
06/11/2015 © The University of Sheffield
That plan looked good.
How do you expect me to
produce something like
that?
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06/11/2015 © The University of Sheffield
06/11/2015 © The University of Sheffield
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06/11/2015 © The University of Sheffield
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Metadata: data about data
•
In the course of your working life as a professional Psychologist you will
routinely generate data. By now you will have already generated varying types
and amounts. Some will be quantitative and some will be qualitative, some
might be from traditional experiments, observational studies or clinical work.
•
The common thread that links the data you generate is that it’s often rendered
unusable in a frighteningly short amount of time. This is irrespective of the
perceived importance at the time you collected it, did an analysis and wrote it
up!
•
Data can become unusable for a variety of reasons, e.g. data losses through
hard drive failure, accidental deletion, computer upgrades, software that can
read the data becomes obsolete or file formats change. However the most
common reason is that you, as the person who generated the data in the first
place, forget what it means! Or rather you forget how the data was coded which
means you can no longer make sense of it. This is especially true if you are
looking at the data in isolation without the written interpretation or publication
that went alongside it.
06/11/2015 © The University of Sheffield
Metadata: data about data
•
By describing your data with metadata you effectively annotate it so that you
give it context and meaning. Metadata to all extents and purposes is data about
data. Doing this isn’t as complicated as it sounds and it’s better to do it as you
go along rather than see it as an additional onerous chore that’s done at the end
of a project. It can be the simple things that help...
06/11/2015 © The University of Sheffield
Metadata: data about data
•
Start with something as simple as sensible filenames:
stats and graphs for 4 main conditions.sav
to
Burt Reading Test (1974) by 4 schools [8 year old pupils].sav
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Metadata: data about data
•
Use the tools you have available:
06/11/2015 © The University of Sheffield
Metadata: data about data
•
Use the tools you have available:
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Administrative metadata
•
This is simply the “who, when and how” the data was created
•
The most common way of writing administrative metadata is to use the “Dublin
Core DCMI Administrative Metadata” format. This is simply a set of “elements”,
or sections, that you should aim to complete. A full list of the 15 elements is
shown below.
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Administrative metadata
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Backing up over the short-term
•
Good practice suggests that you should have copies of your important files in
three separate locations. Often this means a copy at home on your laptop, a
copy at work or on campus and a nowadays a copy in the cloud. By cloud we
mean somewhere like Dropbox or other could based file storage accessed via
the internet, e.g. LiveDrive, Mozy, SkyDrive and Live Mesh, Box, Carbonite,
Jungle Disk, SpiderOak, SugarSync, Syncplicity and Apples iCloud amongst
others.
•
It is not a definitive guide and nor is it intended to provide guidance on long term
archiving. Also it is not a guide to confidentiality, the Data Protection Act or
anonymising personal data. It is purely about data security and preservation
over the short term.
•
Covers the CiCS approach to the cloud with a simple how to
•
Covers confidentiality
•
Introduces Dropbox as an alternative (on either managed desktops or staff
machines)
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Backing up over the short-term
•
Easy to understand terminology with lots of screen grabs
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Backing up over the short-term
•
Doing the same thing in Dropbox
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Where can I get advice again?
06/11/2015 © The University of Sheffield
We will send the website
URL out in an email
Survey Monkey exit
survey
Data Management Planning &
Storage for Psychology project