Managing your lab data
Data are a scientific product
Data are also part of the scientific products your Lab is producing. It is thus important to develop strategies to manage them well, so you can reuse them. Well managed, data can become an an asset for your lab and your collaborators. In the end, the goal of managing your data is to develop documentation that will enable others (including your future self) to understand and reuse those data sets. This documentation does not start when you are wrapping up your project, this process needs to be integrated all along the data life cycle of your project.
Data Life Cycle
To help you think about your Lab data management, you can divide the life cycle of a data set in several phases:
Goal: Developing your Data Management Strategy
One of the goals of our data management sessions together is to develop a common understanding among lab members of “good enough” norms to adhere to help manage your research lab data in a coordinated way. We strongly encourage building on our discussions to develop written guidelines for your research lab that reflect those norms and help to on/off-board lab members. Those guidelines should be seen as a living document that needs to evolve along with your research activities. This document will also set the basis for writing Data Management Plan (DMP) for grant proposals and more.
