As part of its new eResearch program, Victoria University (VU) is undertaking to provide IT services targeted at its researchers. Research data management will form an important component of this program.
It is important to consider data management and planning as an integral part of research. The National Health and Research Council (NHMRC) and the Australian Research Council (ARC) guidelines, through the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct for Research, require institutions to have a policy on the retention of materials and research data and researchers to manage research data and primary materials in accordance with the institutional policy. Not only are data management and planning important for funding-body guidelines, but they can also provide better data use through ease of discovery, access and reuse. In addition, they can play an important part in defending cases of research misconduct.
Aims and objectives
Working towards a plan for further improving and developing central services and infrastructure for research data management, VeRSI will be tasked to investigate and report on four different research areas to gather their current data management practices. In parallel, VU is developing institutional research data management policies and procedures. VeRSI will engage with VU eResearch to feed back on the intended policy and procedures and identify suitability and other considerations that may arise.
VeRSI will describe best practice data management that meets the needs of the investigated research areas. In order to form an ongoing service, VeRSI will work closely with VU to develop a business case for their ITS that is able to support research data management.
A high-level aim is to improve research data management at an institutional level, which will help to improve compliance to NHMRC and ARC guidelines. It would also make research data more accessible and usable for internal and external collaborators, more secure in terms of accidental loss or destruction, more secure from a privacy perspective and more discoverable.
Project details
ID number VU/P/023
Project title Research data management investigation
Start date December 2011 End date June 2012
Lead institute Victoria University
Principal investigator Dr Lyle Winton – Associate Director, eResearch
VeRSI executive sponsor Dr Ann Borda – VeRSI Executive Director
VeRSI project management Jared Winton – VeRSI eResearch analyst
Keywords: Victoria University | VU | Research | Data | VeRSI | Management | Investigation | ARC | NHMRC | Discovery | Accessibility | Usability | IT | Security