Category Archives: CEAS Library

LOVE YOUR DATA Day 2 – Organizing your data

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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?

  1. Test_data_2013
  2. Project_Data
  3. Design for project.doc
  4. Lab_work_Eric
  5. Second_test
  6. Meeting Notes Oct 23

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LOVE YOUR DATA Day 1 – Keep your data safe

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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.

Love Your Data Week Feb 8-12

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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/

Open Science Framework Webinar

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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:

  • Centralized file storage to organize all of your materials in one place
  • Collaboration space to keep coworkers on the same page
  • Fine-grained privacy controls to manage public and private workflows
  • Built-in version control to maintain access to file history
  • Add-on connections to the tools you already use to streamline your workflow

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/

Scholar@UC goes to class

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TEAM_BJS_final_sd_1On 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).

Photo3_From left Ben Albert and Sumeet Ranuv2Photo2_From left Nan Niu, Payel Basak, and Nesrin HusseinPhoto1_From left Sumeet Ranu, Payel Basak, Nesrin Hussein, and Ben Albert

Students: Sumeet Ranu, 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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UC Employees Featured in UC Magazine

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UC Libraries is proud to be a part of the Provost’s Strategic Hiring Opportunity and Dual Career Assistance programs. In a recent article in UC Magazine, library employees Bill McMillin, Tiffany Grant, Don Jason, Hong Cheng and Robert Freeman are included in a feature of new employees that “have joined UC with support from Provost Office funds dedicated to recruit the best and brightest in their fields as well as to attract and support faculty who have partners who can bring their own academic expertise to campus.” You can read all about it online in UC Magazine.

Langsam, CEAS and Chem-Bio Libraries Closed Nov. 28

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Due to a planned electric shutdown for preventative maintenance, the College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS) Library (Baldwin Hall), Chemistry-Biology Library (Reiveschl) and Langsam Library will all be closed Saturday, November 28.

This closing includes the UCit@Langsam Lab located on the 5th floor of Langsam Library. The lab will close 12am, Saturday, November 28 and reopen noon, Sunday, November 29 when the remainder of Langsam re-opens.

Both the CEAS Library and Chemistry-Biology Library have spaces with 24-hour card access. These will be deactivated beginning 5pm, Wednesday, November 25 through the next time the libraries open (Sunday, November 29 at 1pm for the CEAS Library,  and Monday, November 30 at 8:30am for the Chemistry-Biology Library).

11/13: UC Libraries & IT@UC Host Ohio Supercomputer Center workshops

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UC Libraries and IT@UC Research and Development are pleased to present a 1-hour workshop that will provide an introduction on the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) resources and how to use them.

The workshop will be offered Friday, Nov. 13, on both UC’s East and West campuses, at the following times and locations:

Topics include:

  • What is OSC?
  • How can OSC help you?
  • High Performance Computing (HPC) concepts
  • Introduction to OSC’s HPC services
  • How to get access
  • Governance; how you can participate
  • Environment (operating system, connection methods, etc.)
  • Introduction to non-interactive computing
  • Data storage services
  • Scientific applications

This workshop is open to anyone who might be interested in learning about OSC resources. To register for a workshop, visit www.osc.edu/nov13 .

Contact Jane E. Combs, IT@UC Research & Development director, at combsje@ucmail.uc.edu with questions.

Managing Research Data from Generation to Preservation

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Join the University of Cincinnati Libraries for a workshop on data management planning. This interactive and hands-on workshop will address universal data management best practices. While much of the focus is on STEM fields, this course will be useful for anyone interested in learning more about data management practices and principles. The workshop will be held in the Engineering Library in 850D Baldwin on Tuesday, November 17, 2015.

Register for the workshop at http://webcentral.uc.edu/hslclass/home.aspx

Managing Data from Generation to Preservation

This 3 hour activities based workshop will examine data management principles for the various phases of data. Participants will create a data set and apply principles covering topics such as types and formats of data, file naming conventions, Readme files, metadata, backup and archiving data using UC resources, roles and responsibilities regarding data and university and national data policies.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015 – 850D Baldwin

Contact Kristen Burgess, Assistant Director for Research and Informatics, Health Sciences Library with any questions.

Data Management Planning Workshops

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Join the University of Cincinnati Libraries for a series of workshops on data management planning! The workshops will address universal data management best practices for health sciences, science and engineering students and professionals. While much of the focus is on STEM fields, this course will be useful for anyone interested in learning more about data management practices and principles. Each workshop will include a teaching portion and hands on activities. We recommend that registrants attend all three workshops if possible. Workshops will be held in the Health Sciences Library (HSL) Electronic Classroom G005G.

Register at http://webcentral.uc.edu/hslclass/home.aspx

Workshops and Dates:

  • October 13th, 12 – 1:30p – Data Generation and Collection (Data Management Workshop 1)

This hands-on workshop will cover topics such as:  types and formats of data, file naming conventions, Readme files, data templates, metadata, and roles and responsibilities with data.

  • October 20th, 12 – 1:30p – Working with Data (Data Management Workshop 2)

A hands-on workshop that covers topics such as data versioning, data backup, and UC’s new Box system

  • October 27th, 12 – 1:30p – Data Preservation and Sharing (Data Management Workshop 3)

This hands-on, interactive workshop covers important aspects of data at UC and beyond including policies at the University and national levels,  copyright and data, and how UC’s systems (Scholar@UC, Research Directory)  integrate and use data.

For more information, contact Kristen Burgess, Assistant Director for Research and Informatics, Health Sciences Library, 513-558-3071