A Curated Collection of Data Management Resources

By Crystal Lewis in resources

September 14, 2022

Below are open access resources for those wanting to learn more about research data management. I have organized resources by type (papers, guides, slides, etc). There are MANY more resources than the ones listed below, but I have narrowed them down to those that I have found most helpful in understanding general best practices in data management and how to implement them into a research workflow.

Resources were last updated on 2024/09/26

Guides

These are guides that are helpful for understanding data management in the context of the entire research process.

Author Title
Briney, K. The Research Data Management Workbook
CESSDA Data Management Expert Guide
DIME Analytics DIME Wiki
ELIXIR Research Data Management Kit
Filip, A. Data Management Handbook for Human Subjects Research
ICPSR Guide to Social Science Data Preparation and Archiving
Institute of Education Sciences Sharing Study Data: A Guide for Education Researchers
J-PAL Research Resources
Lewis, C. Data Management in Large-Scale Education Research Book
Responsible Data The Handbook of the Modern Development Specialist
Reynolds, T., Schatschneider, C. & Logan, J. The Basics of Data Management
The Turing Way Handbook

Papers

These are papers written about research data management practices and workflows.

Author Year Title
Alston, J. & Rick, J. 2021 A Beginner's Guide to Conducting Reproducible Research
Borghi, J., & Van Gulick, A. 2022 Promoting Open Science Through Research Data Management
Borghi, J., Abrams, S., Lowenberg, D., Simms, S. & Chodacki, J. 2018 Support Your Data: A Research Data Management Guide for Researchers
Borycz, J. 2021 Implementing Data Management Workflows in Research Groups Through Integrated Library Consultancy
Briney, K., Coates, H. & Goben, A. 2020 Foundational Practices of Research Data Management, Research Ideas and Outcomes
Butters, O., Wilson, R. & Burton, P. 2020 Recognizing, Reporting and Reducing the Data Curation Debt of Cohort Studies
Eaker, C. 2016 What Could Possibly Go Wrong? The Impact of Poor Data Management
Gonzales, S., Carson, M. & Holmes, K. 2022 Ten Simple Rules for maximizing the recommendation of NIH Data Mgmt and Sharing Plan
Logan, J., Hart, S. & Schatscneider, C. 2021 Data Sharing in Education Science
Strand, J. 2021 Error Tight: Exercises for Lab Groups to Prevent Research Mistakes
Yenni, et al. 2019 Developing a modern data workflow for regularly updated data

Checklists

Thesea are checklists to help researchers plan for the data management process through the research life cycle.

Author Title
Briney, K. Data Management Plan Checklist
Harvard Longwood Research Data Management Research Data Management Checklist
Lewis, C. Checklists for every phase of a project
Stanford Medicine Lane Medical Library Data Management Checklist
UK Data Service Checklist

Slides

These are slides from presentations on the research data management life cycle and best practices to implement.

Author Title
Briney, K. Kristin Briney Slide Share
Lewis, C. Data Management Workflows for Education Research Studies
Lewis, C. 10 Common Data Management Mistakes
Logan, J. Data Management and Data Management Plans
Logan, J. Data Sharing and Data Shared
POWER Data Management Hub Slides from hub presenters

Equity in Data Management

These are guides on how to manage data while considering data equity and ethics.

Author Title
Chicago Beyond Why am I always being researched?
Mathematica Tips for conducting equitable and culturally responsive evaluation
Poverty Action Lab Ethical conduct of randomized evaluations
Urban Institute Do No Harm Guide: Applying Equity Awareness In Data Privacy Methods
Urban Institute Principles for advancing equitable data practice

Other Resources

These are other types of resources ranging from blog posts to podcasts, that also provide excellent data management content.

Resource Type Title
Blog Kristin Briney Blog
Blog Teague Henry: Strings Not Factors Blog
Data Structure Standard Psych-DS: A Technical Specification for Psychological Datasets
Glossaries FORRT Glossary; Open Science Training Handbook Glossary; Data Flow Toolkit Processes; UCSF HRPP Definitions; Cornell University Glossary of data management terms;
Podcast Within & Between
Podcast IDEA: Improving Data Engagement and Advocacy
Syllabus Data Management for Psychological Science: A Crowdsourced Syllabus
Workshop Materials SREE Data Management for Data Sharing Workshop

Organizations

These are organizations, many working in the area of open science and reproducible research, who often have searchable databases that can be used to find resources around data management, among other topics.

Organization Resource Hub
CESSDA Training Resources
DataONE Data Management Skillbuilding Hub
FORRT Curated Resources
FOSTER Resources
OER Commons - Hubs Open Scholarship Knowledge Base
Search "data management" in repository databases for great resources OSF; Zenodo; figshare; LDbase
UK Data Service Learning Hub
University Librarians (this is just a small sampling!) University of New Hampshire Library; Stanford Medicine Lane Medical Library; University of Pittsburgh Library System

Data Organization and Cleaning Resources

Oftentimes people are interested in resources specific to developing good data cleaning workflows. While the resources above are about overall data management practices, below are some resources specific for how to structure and organize your data files, as well as common rules and steps for cleaning and validating your data in preparation for sharing and analysis. Although I advocate using code for data cleaning, and I am an avid #rstats user, I recognize that researchers use different tools and I want to provide resources that meet people where they are. Therefore, the resources below, even if specific tools are mentioned, are provided because I simply appreciate the general data cleaning process that is provided.

Author Title
ACAPS Data Cleaning
Borer, E., Seabloom, E., Jones, M. & Schildhauer, M. Some Simple Guidelines for Effective Data Managment
Broman, K. Steps toward reproducible research
Broman, K. Data Cleaning Principles: Talk for csvconf
Broman, K. & Woo, K. Data Organization in Spreadsheets
DeCoster, J. Data Validation
Dupriez, O., Sanchez Castro, M. & Revision, M. Guide for Data Archivists
Ellis, S. & Leek, J. How to Share Data for Collaboration
Hubbard, A. Data Cleaning in Mathematics Education Research: The Overlooked Methodological Step
Innovations for Poverty Action Reproducible Research: Best Practices for Data and Code Management
Innovations for Poverty Action Cleaning Guide
J-Pal Data cleaning and management
Lewis, C. Data Cleaning for Data Sharing Workshop Materials
Lewis, C. Data Cleaning for Data Sharing Blog Post
Morrow, J. Brief Introduction to the 12 Steps of Evaluation Data Cleaning
Schatschneider, C., Edwards, A., & Shero, J. De-identification Guide
Towse, A., Ellis, D., Towse, J. Making data meaningful: guidelines for good quality open data
White, et al. Nine simple ways to make it easier to (re)use your data
Wilson, et al. Good Enough Practices in Scientific Computing
Posted on:
September 14, 2022
Length:
5 minute read, 1055 words
Categories:
resources
Tags:
data management data cleaning
See Also:
Let it go: Effectively delegating tasks
Let's talk about joins
Hire a data manager