Research Data Management: What is Research Data Management (RDM)?

Research Data Management (RDM) is the organization, storage, preservation, and dissemination of data gathered or generated during a research endeavor. Effective RDM guarantees that research data is accurate, secure, and accessible throughout and after the research process. It is an essential component of the research lifecycle, ensuring transparency, reproducibility, and long-term usage of research findings. RDM includes activities such as planning, collecting and organising, documenting, storing and backing up, preservation and sharing research data.

It is also important to note that Research Data Management is made up of two concepts: research data and management.

Research Data refers to the information collected, observed, or generated during a research project to answer specific questions or test hypotheses. Ghent University defined research data as 'any information collected or generated for the purpose of analysis, in order to generate or validate scientific claims' Therefore, research data can take many forms, not an exhaustive list here, which may be:

• Surveys, interview transcripts, questionnaires
• Text documents, spreadsheets,
• Laboratory notebooks, field notebooks, codebooks
• Focus groups
• Audiotapes, videotapes, photographs, films
• Collections of digital objects, images, artefacts
• Bibliographies, annotations, archival notes

Management of data refers to the activities such as planning, collecting, organising, documenting, storing, backing up preserving and sharing of the research data. Data management is part of good research practice and when done it brings reputation of the researcher or institutions.