March 23, 2022

Learning Research Data Management with the UW Libraries

Curious about the fundamentals of good data management, or just looking to buff up your already polished skills? Are you new to UW and unfamiliar with the wide variety of resources available to you? The UW Libraries’ Research Data Management (RDM) course is for you! Whether you are a student just starting on your first research project, or a seasoned project manager with years of experience, the RDM course aims to provide enrollees with information on best practices, thought-provoking questions, and further resources for learning. This spring’s class will be held April 18 – 21, 2022; registration is on the RDM class guide.

This four-day, online asynchronous course allows enrollees to complete about an hour of guided readings and short daily discussions on their own time, with UW librarian tutors available for further questions and support. Each of the first three days focuses on a specific topic: basic data management concepts, data handling during a research project, and what to do at a project’s completion. The final day acts as a review of the “big picture” concepts, and covers the research lifecycle as a whole. 

Why Enroll?

So why bother with research data management? Learning about good data management practices allows researchers to protect against data loss and corruption, optimize organization, and encourages open access, sharing, and reuse of scholarly material. Enrollees who complete this course also report an improvement in their comfort with data management concepts, including with creating a data management plan, which are increasingly required for funding agencies in research projects.

But don’t take our word for it–here are some quotes from past workshop attendees:

“This is a great workshop — exposing me to a lot of considerations about data management that I did not know about. The tutor responses have been really helpful. I was unaware of the data librarians on campus and will definitely reach out to them for more resources. Thank you!”

 

“Very helpful and important for anyone working with data.”

 

“I was really impressed with this workshop. It had so many wonderful resources and I learned a lot. The tutors were fantastic … The materials were great and easy to understand as well. It was good to know I’m heading in the right direction with data management and know how to really improve my data management.

 

“I come from an interpretive/qualitative background and often this type of research activity is learned on the job or through learning what not to do the next time around, so having this type of workshop can really help people like me prepare a lot better for the next big project.”

 

For instructors at other institutions interested in implementing a version of the Research Data Management course, see the OSF page on the course, as well as the template on the Canvas Course Commons.

Contact the Scholarly Communications and Publishing team uwlib-scp@uw.edu with any questions.