A systematic and planned approach to the entire life cycle of scholarly data: from collection, creation, and/or observation to documentation, storage, and sharing.
Image credit: Ainsley Seago, doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001779.g001
Many federal and private funders require applicants to include a data management plan (DMP) in award proposals. Some scholarly publishers also require authors to make raw data available to all non-commercial users. There are numerous benefits to actively managing research data.
| Well-managed data can be shared because it is: | Researchers benefit from well-managed, open data because: |
|---|---|
| machine readable | findings may be validated through replication by other scholars |
| available in its entirety | existing work serves as a foundation for subsequent research, through alternative analysis or through mining of multiple data sets |
| inexpensive to obtain (or even free) | data sets are another means of promoting and disseminating scholarly work |
| organized in an readily interpretable manner | awareness of existing data helps scholars avoid unnecessary duplicate work |
| easily manipulated by popular software packages | little or no explanation is required when other researchers wish to obtain and/or use the data |
| preserved, ideally through multiple copies in multiple locations |
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