At the broadest level, research data management is a series of decisions about how you will create, store, publish and preserve the material created during a research project. In a practical sense, data management can mean very different things depending on your subject area, the kinds of material and software you work with and the stage your project is at. This guide is designed to help you get the most out of your research by keeping your data safe and well-organised and improve the quality of your research outputs.
Benefits of embedding best practice in your data management include:
- Data produced from academic research is a valuable output, just like journal articles and books
- Data that is not managed appropriately may be lost or lose quality over time
- UCL and funding agencies can specify data management requirements that researchers are expected to comply with
- Good research data management improves reproducibility, validation and integrity of research
- Sharing of research data enables re-use by other research groups and increases the value of the time and effort invested in generating the data in the first place