Monthly Archives: August 2017

Focus on RDM tools: data storage options

The OU offers a range of tools and services which are designed to help researchers plan, manage, work with and share their research data. In these blogposts I’m going to focus on a few of these tools and services, including how to access and use them and how they can make your life easier.

This week: IT options for storing data during research projects

Storage option?

One of the questions we are most frequently asked is around where project teams should store data during the lifetime of the project. The OU provides a number of facilities for storing data, however please remember that each project is individual so there is no one-size-fits-all solution for everyone and when starting out you’ll need to think carefully about which one works best for you. When considering where to store data, you should consider a number of factors, including but not limited to:

  • How much data do you have?
  • What file types will you be working with?
  • Are the data sensitive?
  • Who needs access? OU staff only? Researchers at other institutions? In the UK? Abroad?
  • How big is your team? What project management functions do you need?
  • Where do you need to access the data? At your desk? In the field?
  • What experience do your team have of using the chosen storage solution? Is any training needed/available?

Research your options

In order to help you to decide which data storage option works best for your project together with our colleagues in IT we have put together a matrix of some of the options  (ORDO, One Drive, OU networked file storage, SharePoint, cloud based services) available to OU researchers, weighing up the pros and cons of each one.

If you’d like more advice about where to store your data, or strategies for managing your data within your chosen system, please get in touch.

NB. Researchers within the STEM faculty have access to specialist IT support (internal link) which they should use in preference to centrally supported storage options outlined in the comparison table linked to above.

New Wellcome Trust policy for research outputs

Last week, the Wellcome Trust announced an update to their policy on managing and sharing research data, which is now a Policy on data, software and materials management and sharing.

Researchers applying to Wellcome in future will be required to prepare to share other outputs of their work, such as original software and research materials like antibodies, cell lines or reagents.

As David Carr, from Wellcome’s Open Research team, writes in their announcement:

 “As a global research foundation, we’re dedicated to ensuring that the outputs of the research we fund – including publications, data, code and materials – can be accessed and used in ways that will maximise the resulting health benefits. 

Making outputs available can spark new lines of discovery and innovation, and helps to ensure that findings can be verified and reproduced.”

Once the new policy is put in to place, applicants for Wellcome funding will have to complete a broader outputs management plan (rather than a data management plan) to address how other research outputs will be managed and shared.

The requirement for the new outputs management plans will be added to application forms over the next year. Guidance already exists on which kinds of work will require one:

Examples of applications that require an outputs management plan

Wellcome have long been champions of ‘open’, being one of the first to require those they fund to make their publications and data openly available, and this update reflects a move towards an Open Research approach, something they have been developing with their Open Research Pilot Project and Open Research publishing platform.

Would it be a surprise if other funders followed suit in expanding their requirements to explicitly consider other research outputs?

Questions about the policy can be put to the Wellcome Policy Team or feel free to get in touch with the us in the Library Research Support team, now or when you are writing your outputs management plan.