Useful links
University policies, resources and support
Research Data Management
Research Data Management Policy
The University's Research Data Management Policy. Researchers and research students are required where possible to preserve and share data supporting research outputs by deposit in a suitable data repository.
The University's data repository. Researchers and research students can use this service to preserve and share data supporting research findings.
Open Research
The University's publications repository.
Guidance on the University's Open Access Policy, funding available for Open Access publishing, and deposit of publications in CentAUR.
A practical guide on how to implement open practices in your research. It includes sections on open licences, Open Access, open research data, open research software and code, preprints, open peer review, reproducibility, open collaboration and citizen science, creating an Open Research culture, and information about help and training.
The University's Statement on Open Research. It includes links to 12 things you can do to be open, and Open Research case studies.
Storage, computing and research software
The Academic Computing Team in DTS provides specialist support for research and teaching. Its website includes information about the high-volume Research Data Storage service, the Research Cloud computing platform, the Reading Academic Computing Cluster, and research software support. Contact members of the ACT team to discuss storage and computing specifications and costs for projects and to request research software engineering support.
File Storage (login required)
View and apply for personal and collaborative storage services available from DTS, including collaborative fileshares (free up to 100 GB), OneDrive for Business (5 TB free personal storage), and the high-volume Research Data Storage service (three storage tiers at different price points).
DTS Business Partners (login required)
Contact your DTS Business Partner to discuss storage and computing requirements for your project and for research support in general.
Research grants
Research Services provides support to academics applying for research funding. Your Research Development Manager should advise you if a data management plan (DMP) is required as part of a grant application and ensure that the Research Data Manager reviews your DMP before submission.
Research Contracts provides support for research agreements, including collaboration, partnership and studentships agreements, and agreements for the use of secondary data. It may be necessary to check a research contract prior to making data available, to establish who has ownership of data and whether any notice of intended publication must be given to other parties.
Data Protection
This guide to managing personal data in research includes a Data Protection Checklist for researchers, which should be used when planning any research involving the processing of personal data. Also here you can find a sample information sheet and consent form, and a Data Protection Impact Assessment form, which may need to be completed for research involving higher-risk personal data processing.
Information Compliance Policies
Policies to be aware of, especially where research involves processing of personal/confidential data: the Data Protection Policy, Information Security Policy, Remote Working Policy and Encryption Policy.
Research Ethics
The Code of Good Practice in Research sets out the principles of research integrity to be followed by all researchers. Section 3.12 deals with the collection and retention of research data.
Information about the University and School Research Ethics Committees and how to apply for ethical approval to carry out research involving human subjects.
Intellectual Property
Intellectual Property Management
Includes the University's Code of Practice on Intellectual Property and support for all aspects of intellectual property management.
Tools
General
Research Data Management Toolkit
This valuable online gateway signposts resources from a wide range of websites and organisations, sorted by topic and audience.
Data management planning
Checklist for a Data Management Plan
This Checklist presents the main questions or themes that researchers may want to cover when writing a data management plan.
The UK Data Archive has developed a simple activity-based costing tool that can be used for costing data management activities. It is designed for researchers in the social sciences but is adaptable to other disciplines.
An online tool to assist you in creating a data management plans according to your funder's requirements. DMPonline includes funder-specific templates with tailored guidance and examples to help you write your data management plan.
Data repositories
BBSRC data sharing and data resources
A list of data sharing resources provided by BBSRC.
A curated registry of data and metadata standards, inter-related to databases and data policies.
A global registry of research data repositories.
Wellcome Open Research-approved repositories
A non-exhaustive list of data repositories in the life sciences.
Licensing
Creative Commons Choose a Licence
Use this tool to select a Creative Commons licence with the correct mix of permissions for your dataset. The tool will generate the correct licence statement and marking which can be included in the dataset.
Use this tool to select an Open Source licence for software source code.
Metadata
This DCC resource provies links to information about disciplinary metadata standards, including profiles, tools to implement the standards, and use cases of data repositories currently implementing them.
Policies
Summaries of key UK research funders' data policies, with links through to policies.
A searchable registry of research funders' Open Access policies, including data archiving policy details.
UKRI Common Principles on Data Policy
The UKRI Common Principles on Data Policy provide an overarching framework for individual Research Council policies on data policy.
Training
Data Training Engaging End-users (Data Tree) is a free online course in data management aimed at research students and early career researchers in the environmental sciences. It includes eight modules covering data management, data analysis, and using data to engage with end users of research.
DCC training and reference materials
The DCC has collated a list of training resources and materials covering all aspects of research data management.
Research Data Management Adventure game
The Research Data Management Adventure takes the form of a choose-your-own-adventure story, and provides a fun alternative for learning about research data management.
Research Data Management and Sharing
This Coursera MOOC from the University of Edinburgh and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill provides an introduction to research data management and sharing.
Research Data MANTRA
A free online research data management training course provided by the University of Edinburgh. It will help you understand and reflect on how to manage the data you collect throughout your research. Through a series of short interactive online units you can learn about best practice in data management.
UK Data Service guidance
The UK Data Service provides excellent guidance in all aspects of research data management, including some training exercises, quizzes and answers. Guidance is geared towards social scientists, but many of the principles and practices are adaptable to other disciplines. Guidance on legal and ethical issues and practicalities relating to participant-based research (e.g. consent and anonymization) is especially useful.
RDM organisations
Digital Curation Centre
The Digital Curation Centre (DCC) provides research data management information and services to UK higher education. The website includes how-to guides to data management, the DMPonline data management planning tool, examples of data management plans submitted to UK funders, and guidance on funders' data policies.
The Research Data Alliance is an international organization with the goal of building the social and technical infrastructure to enable open sharing and re-use of data. It accomplishes its work through a variety of working groups and interest groups with a variety of remits, both general and discipline-specific. Individual membership is free.
Software Sustainability Institute
The Software Sustainability Institute provides community, consultancy, policy and training services to researchers who build and use software.