Data Management Course Outline

From Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP)
The printable version is no longer supported and may have rendering errors. Please update your browser bookmarks and please use the default browser print function instead.

Back to the main data management training page

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

Module template and Author Guidelines

For Scientists

The case for data stewardship

Data Management plans

  • Why do a data management plan?
  • 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
    • ??QUESTION: Should the plan define (an) objective metric(s) to make implementation and compliance measurable?
  • 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
    • QUESTIONS
      • Should we at least touch on version control, or is that adequately addressed by tracking/describing changes?
  • Data Formats - Ruth
  • 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
    • Individual agencies, archives and registries may have specific requirements
  • 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
    • Who gets to access your data
      • Agency best practices & policies
    • Access mechanisms
    • Tracking data usage
    • Handling sensitive data
    • Rights

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
  • Emerging standards for preservation - Ron Weaver/NSIDC
  • Metadata

Responsible Data Use

  • Citation and credit - Matt Mayernik/NCAR
  • Data restrictions - Bob Downs
  • Fair use - Matt
  • Feedback and metrics
  • 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