Storing and sharing research data
Hanze UAS has IT facilities to store research data and to share data files with other students or researchers. Which facilities to use depend on the context in which you conduct your research.
Recommendations for storage and sharing of research data for students:
| Your research is... | Data storage: | Sharing data: |
|---|---|---|
|
A) a (graduation) assignment at Hanze UAS: |
OneDrive account of Hanze UAS |
Share the link to the original document on OneDrive* |
| B) an assignment at a Professorship: | ResearchDrive project folder provided by the Professorship (alternative: Sharepoint) |
Share the link to the original document in the project folder* |
| C) a Living Lab (IWP) project, in collaboration with other organizations: | ResearchDrive project folder provided by the Living Lab (alternative: Sharepoint) |
Share the link to the original document in the project folder* |
| D) an internship assignment at a company or organization: |
Storage facilities of the organization. If not provided, use your OneDrive account at Hanze UAS. |
Discuss with your supervisor at the organization |
* Is is not recommended to send data files as an e-mail attachment. If your data contains personal information, this way of transferring data is not secure because you loose control of what happens to the data files. Version control is another good reason for keeping your data files on one place. Instead of sending the files, you can send a link to the original file location on OneDrive, ResearchDrive or Sharepoint. This way, everyone knows where to find and access the most recent version of the file. If this is for some reason not possible: SURF Filesender is a secure way to send (large) data files.
Don't let your data become a jungle!
Organizing and structuring your data: not the most 'sexy' topics, but they can save you a lot of time and hassle. If you work with large amounts of files of if your data is complex, a project folder can easily become a data jungle, making it difficult finding the files you need.
Here are a few tips and tricks to organize your project files:
- Are you doing lab experiments? Consider to document the process in an Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN).
- Do you have many different data files? Make a plan for setting up a good folder structure and for naming your files.
- Will you create many different versions or updates of your files? Create a dedicated document where you write down all the changes made in every new version.
- Are you collaborating with others? Agree on who is responsible for data management, such as organizing the files and version control.
Tips for folder structure
If you work with many different files, setting up a logical folder structure will help you organizing your files so you will be able to find them easily. This will also allow you to keep the file names relatively short.
It is useful to make a separate folder for each different phase or aspect in your research project. For example:
- Administration
- Literature
- Data
- Results
How to structure the folders and subfolders that contain the research data, depends on your unique research project. Some examples:
- Type of data. For example one separate folder for interviews, one for audio recording, one for transcripts, etc.
- Time. You can organize your folders according to the point in time the data were collected (if the time dimension is an important aspect in your work)
- Topics. Such as data about economic growth in (i) dairy sector, (ii) poultry sector), (iii) pig farming, etc.
Tips for version control
- Give clear names to your files that are related to the content of the files;
- Use dates and version numbers in your file names;
- A useful format for the date is YYYYMMDD. This allows you to order the files chronologically
- Always keep the raw data files, preferably in a separate folder, and create a new version to edit the data. When making major changes, first copy the file and use an updated version number.
For example:
