Data management, storage, and sharing
Research data needs encompass a broad and growing array of services. There are several key campus resources to support data management, movement, storage, and sharing that are readily available to NC State researchers.
What is data management?
Research data management is a useful term to describe the strategies and processes researchers use to ensure that the data generated during the course of their investigation is sufficiently organized, described and documented to support potential sharing and archiving.
Developing sustainable data management practices early in your research process is increasingly important, as many funding agencies now mandate a plan for data management and sharing as a part of the grant proposal process.
Making your data reusable
You may have recently seen reference to the FAIR guiding principles for data stewardship. The goal of the FAIR principles is to help ensure research data are:
- Findable: metadata and data should be easy to find for both humans and computers
- Accessible: users know how the data can be accessed, possibly including authentication and authorization
- Interoperable: data can interoperate with both other data and with applications or workflows for analysis, storage, and processing
- Reusable: metadata and data should be well-described so that they can be replicated and/or combined in different settings
In practice, making data FAIR can mean different things across disciplines and data types.
Get started with data management, storage, and sharing
Plan
Collect and store
Analyze
Publish and preserve
Not sure where to start?
The RFS can provide consultation on data management best practices, appropriate data repositories for publication, and more. We can also connect you with specialists from across campus.