Course content:
Ecological questions and the data needed to answer them are increasing in complexity. This leads to large amounts of data collected during individual research projects and the need to integrate heterogeneous data from various sources to recognize patterns on a large scale. The so-called FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable; www.force11.org/group/fairgroup/fairprinciples) have been established as a concept defining the general principles that research data should meet to enable their sustainable reuse. These principles should be considered along the entire life cycle of data, from their production to their processing, archival, and publication.
The increasing need for an infrastructure to support and promote active research data management has been widely recognized over the past years. As a consequence, the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) was launched in Germany, and within the NFDI the consortia NFDI4BioDiversity focuses on building and enhancing services for the community working with and generating biodiversity, ecological, and environmental data. NFDI4BioDiversity builds upon the services of GFBio, a DFG-funded expert network for research data management providing individual support with the aim of preventing data loss, enabling researchers to easily archive and publish data in the associated data centers, and simplifying the retrieval and integration of ecologically relevant data.
The workshop will consist of hands-on exercises addressing GFBio’s and NFDI4BioDiversity's services for central aspects of data management along the data life cycle. First and foremost, data management makes the life of any researcher collecting data easier. One part of the workshop will therefore focus on the “first step” in the data life cycle – planning. GFBio & NFDI4BioDiversity actively support individual researchers in writing their own data management plan (DMP), which is guided with a set of key questions that comply with the DFG Guidelines on Handling Research Data in Biodiversity Research. Within the workshop, the researchers will be able to apply the DMP to their own current or future research projects. Along the line, we will introduce best practices for the creation of metadata and give an overview of the GFBio & NFDI4BioDiversity service portfolio. Another important aspect of FAIR data management is the ability to reuse and efficiently integrate already published data for the generation of novel hypotheses. Using the VAT (Visualization, Analysis and Transformation) tool, participants will get hands-on experience on the possibilities arising from well-described, standardized data, and learn how to use the VAT tool for visualization and further analysis. The course is targeted towards ecologists that:
• Find themselves under a pile of heterogeneous research data
• Want to learn how to write DFG-conform data management plans
• Want to get familiar with data management best practices
• Want to explore, analyze and visualize research data
Lecturers:
• Judith Weber, MARUM- Universität Bremen, Leobener Str. 2, 28359 Bremen, 0049 421 218-65581, Judith.Weber@uni-bremen.de
• Jimena Linares, GFBio - Gesellschaft für Biologische Daten e.V., c/o Research II, Campus Ring 1, 28759 Bremen, jlinares@gfbio.org
• Christian Beilschmidt, Geo Engine C/O Uni Marburg, Hans-Meerwein-Str., 35043 Marburg, Christian.Beilschmidt@geoengine.de
Duration: 3 hours
Date/Time: 28.08.2021, 10:00 – 13:00 h
Maximum number of participants: 20