Transparency in research is an integral part of good scientific practice. In addition, more and more funders and academic publishers require measures to ensure replicability of research findings as well as re-usability of research data, i.e., data sharing. Transparency and re-usability of research data depend on good data management, ensuring high quality of research data. Data preparation and documentation are key activities in managing (research) data, being a prerequisite for data analysis. Moreover, the quality of data as well as its documentation and metadata standards employed play an important role in data sharing, improving its the findability in online data catalogues and increasing the understandability and thus re- usability of the data.
The two-day workshop ‘A Practical Introduction to Research Data Management’ supports researchers to ensure that their research data is usable within the project and can be shared with others beyond the project. It introduces the basics of data management, e.g., in terms of data organization and legal issues to be considered, working with data. In addition, it takes a closer look on the various activities to clean, pseudonymize and document quantitative research data in the social sciences (8 th of March), such as survey data, as well as to prepare and document qualitative data, such as interviews, video and audio recordings (9th of March).
By the end of this workshop, participants are equipped with the basics of data management and its various aspects. They are familiar with technics and measures to prepare and document social science research data. Moreover, participants are aware of the relevance to share data, have gained a deeper understanding on how to make data available for others, in line with the idea of Open Science and according to the FAIR-Data-Principles1.
The workshop is based on a mixture of presentations and exercises, to increase participants’ awareness, as well as discussions, to debate concrete problems and to exchange experiences.