2.6 Describing your own research data
You have now learned about the concept of research data and seen examples of what it may refer to in real-life science. Before you proceed to the next section, where we address the first phase of the research data management life cycle, we want you
to reflect on the data that you are using or will be using in your PhD project. It is important to have a conscious relationship to which data you are (or will be) working on, because different types of data may require different treatments when it comes to collection, structuring, documentation, and archiving.
The goal of this exercise is therefore to help you create a bridge between the theory presented in this course
and the concrete research project that you are working on, but also to see the relevance of good research data management for your own field of study.
Exercise instructions
Imagine that you are attending a PhD seminar on research methods, research transparency, and research data management. In a warm-up group exercise, the seminar leader asks you to present your (future) research data to the other group members, using five (not more, not less) keywords. No other instructions are given.
Since this course is online and asynchronous, the nearest we get to a real-life group exercise is to ask you to add your keywords to a dynamic word cloud, which contains all keywords added by other participants of this course. Here's how you need to proceed:
- In another browser window, go to https://www.menti.com/r36ddd1c2c (ignore the code in the Menti window below).
- Enter your five keywords and click Submit.
- Go back to this page, and click the "Hide image" button in the picture to reveal the word cloud.
- Examine the word cloud and see if there are other keywords entered that are also relevant for the description of your data.
- If you want, you may go back to the voting window and enter these newly discovered, relevant keywords. Remember to click Submit.