The research data lifecycle: a roadmap to open data and more

KATHRYN & SHELBY CULLOM DAVIS LIBRARY [email protected] Guillaume Pasquier, 2025 This document is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.10572496 The Research Data Lifecycle A roadmap to open data and more Writing a data management plan (DMP) before your project even starts will help you avoid multiple issues through the whole process. Planning Collecting Processing Analysing Preserving Sharing Collection often includes the reuse of existing data. Proper data management and documentation are necessary to understand and trust secondary data. For more information, check our open science posters or Ask a Librarian! [email protected]h Data cleaning, interview transcription, anonymisation and other operations should be referenced in documentation such as a Readme file. Qualitative coding, regressions, visualisations, and other analysis operations are central to research. Document your choices for replicability and reproducibility. The safety and security of storage and transfer are important, especially for personal and sensitive data. Select what to keep or delete, such as old versions or identifier keys for pseudonymised personal data. Export the data in durable file formats, determine the preservation schedule, and archive the data. Sharing your dataset on your own website does not make it open data. Select a license for your dataset and pick a FAIR data repository to host it so it can be reused. What can be legally shared and preserved may differ. “As open as possible, as closed as necessary.” By integrating proper research data management practices throughout a project, your shared open data can be reused in later projects by yourself or other researchers. These good practices also support the replicability of your research. Research Data Management Join our Webex community Contact Guillaume Pasquier to be added to the IHEID Data Network. Research Data Management Guide https://libguides.graduateinstitute.ch/rdm