I say to you….slow down, smell the agar plates, take the time to document your data. Your future self will thank you, profusely.
Proper documentation provides the context that your data needs to persist through time, to integrate into new systems and to give you credit for your contributions in the form of data citations. Where possible, you should consider contributing the following information along with your dataset.
Post by Tiffany Grant PhD, Research Informationist based at Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library
Organizing Data
When you’re generating data at a rapid pace, it can be easy to label files with names that seem good at the time, but that will have very little meaning to you later. This practice may save time in the present, but it will ultimately lead to great frustration in the future when finding these exact files seem nearly impossible.
A good practice for data organization is to give your files meaningful, descriptive names, but avoiding long file names. Files names should allow you to identify a precise experiment from the name.
How meaningful are the following file names?
Let’s kick off LOVE YOUR DATA week with KEEPING DATA SAFE.
First a sad story – in one of my first Top Ten Tips for Data Management workshops, I had a workshop participant who I thought was bored out of his skull. He had a glazed look in his eyes and kept shaking his head as if he was saying no, no, no. I approached him, though with some reservations after the workshop, and asked what he thought about the topic and my presentation. His words and I quote were “if only I had known this 6 months ago…I just lost my dissertation work and I am still getting over the shock”. Not bored, but in shock. He had lost 6 months’ worth of work. Sadly he is not the first. If only he and others had known about 3-2-1 or Here-Near and Far.
3-2-1 stands for
3 copies (1 primary copy and two backup copies of your data)
2 formats for storage (use a computer hard drive and an external hard drive)
1 remote copy (cloud storage or geographically separate from your other copies)
These three tips will help keep your data safe and protect your valuable time.
Here, Near and Far is another way of thinking about the same tips. Set up an automatic back up for your data to make it even easier.
At UC we have a few tools that can help you back up your data:
1) Use your Box account. You have 50 GB available to you. IT@UC also has other data solutions available.
2) You can track your work with the Open Science Framework developed by the Center for Open Science or use GitHub.
3) Attend a data management workshop offered by UC Libraries. We have several coming up particular a workshop called Managing Research Data from Generation to Preservation on April 19th.
Fun Fact: Did you know we can still look at Darwin’s original notebooks through the Darwin Online project. Someone took extra special care for those files. Let’s do the same for your data.
Check out this fun video about data back-up and learn how the movie Toy Story 2 was almost lost, but was saved by the 3-2-1 rule.
Visit the Love your Data website for more tips to help keep your data safe. Follow the event on Twitter at #LYD16.
Join us for LOVE YOUR DATA WEEK February 8 – 12 2016. This week long social media event will celebrate your biggest research asset – your data. Each day will highlight tips and resources around a specific theme.
Monday: Keeping Data Safe
Tuesday: Organizing Data
Wednesday: Documenting Data
Thursday: Data Sharing – Data Citations
Friday: Open Data – Reusing Data
Website: https://loveyourdata.wordpress.com/
Twitter: #LYD16
Instagram: #LYD16
Facebook: #LYD16
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/coateshl/love-your-data-2016/
https://www.pinterest.com/coateshl/the-changing-face-of-data/
OSF 101 Webinar
The Open Science Framework is a free, open source web application created by the Center for Open Science built to help researchers manage their workflows. The OSF is part collaboration tool, part version control software, and part data archive.
Learn how to make the most of your free OSF account by participating in our upcoming webinar. Make managing your research easier with these features:
Wednesday, February 3, 2016 – 11a -12p EST
Click here for details and to register.
To learn more about the Center for Open Science, visit their website: https://cos.io/
On Thursday December 3, 2015, UC Libraries staff members of the Scholar@UC (http://scholar.uc.edu) development team Linda Newman and Thomas Scherz, digital archivist Eira Tansey and science informationist Amy Koshoffer were given a wonderful treat of requirement engineering and donuts and cookies. We were invited to attend the final project presentations in CEAS Engineering & Computing Systems professor Dr. Nan Niu’s Requirements Engineering course (CS6027).
Students: Payel Basak, Nerin Hussein, Ben Albert
Dr. Niu is featured in the photo in upper right. Dr. Niu is an early adopter for our institutional repository Scholar@UC.
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A diverse group representing research fields from music to IT to medicine at UC attended the 2015 UC GIS Day Celebration Lecture. Dr. Alan T. Murray from Drexel University’s Center for Spatial Analytics and Geocomputation presented an entertaining and informative overview on the application of GIS analysis to contemporary issues. Dr. Murray examined challenges and strategies for spatial optimization in public alert systems design, fire response, transit system design, nighttime urban lighting and recreational space planning in the extreme Arizona climate. The mix of storytelling, real world problems and the mathematics of GIS engaged the audience of nearly fifty prompting several audience members to propose collaborative projects on the spot. This year’s event was sponsored by UC Libraries, IT@UC and the Geography Graduate Student Organization. UC Libraries is now offering Introduction to GIS workshops in partnership with the Department of Geography. For more information about GIS or library workshops, contact Dr. Changjoo Kim (changjkm@ucmail.uc.edu) of the Department of Geography or Amy Koshoffer (koshofae@ucmail.uc.edu) Science Informationist for UC Libraries.
Photo credits: Song Shu, graduate student, Department of Geography