Why manage research data?

Effective research data management is a cornerstone of the responsible conduct of research. Before starting new research projects, chief Investigators and research teams should develop a data management plan. The plan will record how the team will comply with the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research and meet the requirements, if any, of grant-making bodies.

Sound data management procedures:

• Increase the efficiency of research
• Help guarantee the quality and authenticity of data
• Enable the exposure of research outcomes through collaboration and dissemination
• Provide for the reproducibility of experimental and computational outcomes
• Facilitate the validation and verification of results.

Good reasons to share

With the increasingly inter-disciplinary nature of research, data re-use can often lead to breakthrough research.

Research data, especially data from publicly funded research, is a national asset and should be made freely available to other researchers, unless there are privacy, commercialisation or ethical concerns that prevent or prohibit data sharing .

Sharing provides opportunities for data mashups, data combining, data mining, and other innovative re-uses of data.

Data must be managed in accordance with the following requirements:

• legislative
• administrative
• contractual
• legal
• policy
• ethical