Research Data Management

Research Data Management (RDM) refers to the active curation of research data throughout the research lifecycle. RDM activities typically include planning and making decisions about the collection, organisation, storage, retention, publishing and sharing of research data.

CODATA have put together a useful glossary of terminology for key research data management concepts.

Research data management is integral to high-quality research and vital for ensuring the sustainability, discoverability and accessibility of data in the long-term. It enhances the integrity of research and facilitates data sharing, validation and re-use in accordance with legal, ethical and funder requirements.

The University provides support, guidance and training for researchers to enable effective data management throughout the research lifecycle.

Benefits of research data management

Good data management practice requires an initial investment of time and effort, but it offers lots of benefits to researchers, including:

• Increases research efficiency and saves you time
• Helps you to meet funder and institutional requirements
• Enhances the visibility and impact of your research data
• Minimises the risk of valuable data loss
• Improves the environmental sustainability of research
• Creates opportunities for new collaborations

Guidance

To help you effectively manage your research data and comply with the University’s Research Data Management Policy, the Open Research team have created this supporting guidance. These pages will also help you to comply with funder requirements and publisher policies.

The guidance has been structured to follow the research data lifecycle as well as the typical sections of a data management plan.
 

Plan

• Data management plan
• Responsibilities and resources
• Funder requirements
   

Collect

• Data collection
• Ethics and legal compliance
   

Process & analyse

• Documentation and metadata
• Storage and backup
   

Preserve

• Selection and retention
   

Share

• Data sharing
• Data access statements
• University of Salford Figshare Repository

Related policies & documents

• University of Salford Research Data Management Policy
• Data Depositor Agreement
• Data Protection Policy
• Academic Ethics Policy
• Intellectual Property Policy