Data Management Course Outline

Back to the main data management training page

NOTE: We agreed that the target audience initially would be scientists

Caution!!!!

All of the modules on this site are draft materials only! They are made available here so that interested parties can see what is in development and have the chance to comment. Once modules have completed the peer and editorial review process, they will be moved to the ESIP Information Commons and placed under revision control.

Module template and Author Guidelines

For Scientists

The case for data stewardship

Agency requirements - Ruth
- NSF data management plans - Ruth
- NASA science data policy - Ron Weaver
- NOAA Administrative Order 212-15, Management of Environmental and Geospatial Data and Information - Jeff Arnfield/NCDC
Return on Investment - Erin/Carol
- Return on Scientist's investment - Ruth
- Expanding the audience for your data- Ruth
- Return on public investments- Ruth
Verifiable science
- Tying your data to standards, metrics, and benchmarks
Facilitating science through interoperable discovery and access - Jeff Arnfield/NCDC
Enhancing your reputation - Matt Mayernik/NCAR
Preserving the Scientific Record - Matt
- Establishing Relationships with archives - Matt
- Preserving a Record of Environmental Change - Matt
- Other case studies? - Matt
What Not to do when Archiving Data!

Data Management plans

Why do a data management plan? - Ruth
Elements of a plan - Ruth
- Identify materials to be created - Ruth
- Identify your audience(s) - Ruth
- Data organization - Ruth
- Roles and responsibilities - Ruth
- Describing and documenting your data, including metadata - Ruth
- Standards used - Ruth
- Data access, sharing, and re-use policies - Ruth
- Backups, archives, and preservation strategy - Ruth
Estimating effort and resources required - Ruth
- Hardware, software capabilities required - Ruth
- Personnel resources and skills needed - Ruth
Some available resources to help with developing your plan - Ruth

Local Data Management

Managing your data - Ruth
- Data identifiers and locators - Jeff Arnfield/NCDC
- File naming conventions (Cook)
- Backing up your data (Cook)
- Write it down! Maintaining contemporaneous documentation
  - Who, what, when, where, why, how
  - Tracking and describing changes to the data
  - Lab-based approaches to Data Management - Lynn/NSIDC
Data Formats - Ruth
- Avoiding proprietary formats - Al Fleig
- Choosing and adopting community accepted standards - Curt Tilmes/NASA
- Building understandable spreadsheets - Jeff Arnfield/NCDC
- Using self-describing data formats - Curt Tilmes/NASA
Creating documentation and metadata
- Developing a citation for your data (Cook)
- Recording provenance and context - Jeff Arnfield/NCDC
- For your collections as a whole
- Creating item level metadata
- Metadata for discovery - Tyler Stevens/GCMD
- Metadata for access and use - Jeff Arnfield/NCDC
- Metadata for archiving - Jeff Arnfield/NCDC
- Metadata for tracking data processing - Curt Tilmes
- Individual agencies, archives and registries may have specific requirements
- Introduction to Standards - Lynn/NSIDC
- Introduction to XML - Lynn/NSIDC
Working with your archive organization - Ron Weaver/NSIDC
- Planning for longer term preservation - Jeff Arnfield/NCDC
- Work with your archive early and often - Jeff Arnfield/NCDC
- Broadening your user community
Advertising your data
- Agency/institution requirements for publishing metadata
- Journals and publications
- Agency/institution web sites
- Using portals and registries
  - Publishing metadata to a Web Accessible Folder
  - Publishing metadata to GCMD - Tyler Stevens/GCMD
  - Publishing metadata to ECHO
  - Publishing metadata to Data.Gov
  - NOTE: Need to address additional portals and registries beyond GCMD & ECHO. Add other entries as appropriate
- Datacasting
Providing access to your data - Rama/Bob Downs/Chris Lenhardt/Ron Weaver (whole section)
- Evaluating who your audience is - Bob Downs
- Who gets to access your data
  - Agency best practices & policies
- Access mechanisms
- Tracking data usage - Bob Downs
- Handling Sensitive Data - Bob Downs
- Rights
Additional Products
- Additional resources: What you already have that others can use - Lynn/NSIDC
- Writing Sharable Code - Lynn/NSIDC

Preservation strategies

Sponsor (e.g., Agency) or institution requirements - Ron Weaver /NSIDC
Options for archiving your data - Ron Weaver/NSIDC
- What archives are out there? - Ron Weaver/NSIDC
  - Discipline or institutional archives
  - Finding an archive
- What to do if there is no archive out there - Ron Weaver/NSIDC
What data goes into a Long-term archive? - Ron Weaver/NSIDC
What do long term archives do with my data? - Jeff Arnfield/NCDC
Data transfer & submission agreements - Ron Weaver/NSIDC
- See "Submission Agreements" section under "For Data Managers"
- Agency/archive specific requirements my vary
Intro to the OAIS Reference Model - Curt Tilmes
Emerging standards for preservation - Ron Weaver/NSIDC
Metadata

Responsible Data Use

Citation and credit - Matt Mayernik/NCAR
Data restrictions - Bob Downs
Fair access and use - Matt
Feedback and metrics - Ruth
Collaboration
Community participation

For Data Managers

Data Management plan support
Collection or acquisition policies
Intro to OAIS reference model
Initial Assessment and appraisal
- Identify information to be preserved
  - main features and properties
  - dependencies on information here or elsewhere
- Identify objects to be received
- Establish complementary information needs (e.g., format, data descriptions, provenance, reference information, context, fixity information)
  - What complementary information is needed for data useful for climate studies (USGCRP list)
- Assessing potential designated communities
- Assessing probable curation duration
- Assessing data transfer options
- Defining access paths
- Assessing costs and feasibility
- Metadata, metadata standards, and levels of metadata
Submission agreements
- Data integrity
- Contacts
- Schedule
- Operational Procedures
- Error reconciliation
- Constraints
- other aspects necessary for understanding how to support the data
Preparing for ingest
Ingesting data
- Validation checks
- Identifiers
- Citations
- Levels of service
Periodic re-assessment
Curation activities
- Media migration
- Format migration