Before you begin your research, review the following check list. Discuss the questions on the check list with your research group.
Data Planning Checklist
- What type of data will be produced?
- How much data will there be? How quickly will it grow? How often will it change?
- Who will use the data now, and in the future?
- Who controls the data (professor, student, lab, funding agency)? What intellectual property considerations might apply?
- How long should the data be retained? How long would you expect it to be useful, e.g. through the end of grant/experiment, 3-5 years, 10-20 years, permanently?
Standards
- Is there project and data documentation?
- What directory and file naming conventions will be used?
- What project and data identifiers will be assigned?
- What file formats are used? Are they standards-based or proprietary?
- Are there tools or software needed to create/process/visualize the data? Are the tools or software proprietary?
- Is there an ontology or other community standard for data sharing/integration?
Access, Sharing, and Re-use
- Any special privacy or security requirements? e.g., personal data, high-security data
- Any sharing requirements? e.g., funder data sharing policy
- Any other funder requirements? e.g., data management plan in grant proposals
- What is your storage and backup strategy?
- When will it be shared and where? How broadly will it be shared? How large will the data set be and will that present difficulties?
- Who in the research group will be responsible for data management?
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