data-management

Manage and Share Your Data with Help from HSLS Data Services

The HSLS Data Services team can help you manage, publish, and share your data for any type of research project. We offer consultations, classes, and customized trainings in the following areas:

Research data management and sharing

Organizing files, writing documentation, and sharing datasets for reuse are crucial practices for improving the reproducibility of research. We offer personal consultations on data management topics and teach classes throughout the semester. In particular, we offer:

  • Synchronous classes on file-naming best practices, writing data management plans for grant applications, and responsibly reusing data (or making your data available for reuse).
  • Asynchronous self-paced learning modules (including one named “Sharing Data and Code”). Upon completion, you can earn badges to share on social media, LinkedIn, etc.
  • One-on-one consultations on writing and implementing a data management and sharing plan (DMSP) for the NIH’s Data Management and Sharing Policy or Pitt’s Research Data Management Interim Policy.
  • Review of DMSPs prior to submission with grant proposals. If you write your plan using one of the templates at DMPTool, use the “request feedback” tab to get comments and suggestions (please allow us at least five business days for an initial review of your plan).

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Open Science with OSF

Open science practices like registering your research plan before beginning experiments, archiving your data, and sharing your code in Github can help increase the trustworthiness of your research results. But getting started with open science can seem daunting. If you’re looking for low-barrier ways to make your research more reproducible, consider OSF, the Open Science Framework.

OSF was built to make open science more effortless by putting multiple tasks in one place. Do you want to pre-register your study so that you can lay claim to your idea, declare your hypothesis before results are known, and avoid confirmation bias (including p-hacking) by choosing statistical tests in advance of data collection? You can register a study in OSF using templates for general research or systematic reviews.

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Zenodo Repository Releases New Collaborative Features for Data Sharing

In October, the CERN-supported data repository Zenodo performed a major technical upgrade and released new features for collaborative work on the platform. Several improvements applied to Communities, subcollections within Zenodo where a project, research group, or organization can gather their uploads in one place. Other upgrades affected access settings, increasing the degree of control researchers can exercise over who can access their uploaded data. The new features may be useful to researchers or groups looking to centralize their data in one repository as they upload their data in compliance with the NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy. (For a discussion on why and how to do so, see the HSLS NIH Data Management & Sharing Guide.)

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Manage and Share Your Data with HSLS Data Services

One of the best ways to ensure that research is robust, reliable, and replicable is to maintain organized, documented, and accessible datasets. The HSLS Data Services team can help you find, manage, publish, and share your data for any type of research project. We offer consultations, classes, and customized trainings in the following areas:

Research data management and sharing

Organizing files, writing documentation, and sharing datasets for reuse are crucial practices for improving the reproducibility of research. We offer personal consultations on data management topics at any time and teach workshops throughout the semester. In particular, we offer:

  • One-hour Introduction to Research Data Management classes that are suitable for everyone, but may be especially helpful for new graduate students and project staff
  • In-depth workshops on file-naming best practices, writing a data management plan for grant applications, and responsibly reusing data (or making your data available for reuse)
  • One-on-one meetings on writing and implementing a data management and sharing plan (DMSP) for the NIH’s data management and sharing policy, which went into effect in January 2023
  • Review of data management and sharing plans prior to submission with grant proposals. If you write your plan using one of the templates at DMPTool (dmptool.org), use the “request feedback” tab to get comments and suggestions. Please allow us at least five business days for an initial review of your plan.

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Two New Resources for Writing NIH Data Management & Sharing Plans: Sample Plans and Pitt-Specific Guidance

While investigators have been hard at work preparing grant proposals under the new NIH Data Management & Sharing Policy, the community of librarians and data professionals that support them have been developing tools to simplify the process. Since our last update in April 2023, two new resources have appeared that HSLS Data Services wants to share:

  1. The NIH now provides 13 sample data management and sharing plans for a variety of data types, research domains, and institutes and centers. These samples were produced from real data management and sharing plans and contain details specific to their research projects; they are not meant to be used as templates, only as examples of the types of details and level of specificity that can be included in the plan.
  2. DMPTool, an interactive tool that walks researchers through the process of creating a data management and sharing plan (DMSP), now includes Pitt-specific guidance such as the language for Element 6, “Oversight of Data Management and Sharing,” recommended by the Office of Sponsored Programs and the Office of Research Protections.

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Tips and Updates for the NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy

The end of April will mark four months—and ten application due dates—since the NIH’s Data Management and Sharing Policy (2023) went into effect. Judging by the application drafts that HSLS librarians have read, Pitt health sciences researchers are rising to the challenge and writing data management and sharing plans that demonstrate careful thought about how their research data will be organized, shared, and preserved.
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NIH Releases Public Access Plan for Public Comment

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that the NIH Plan to Enhance Public Access to the Results of NIH-Supported Research (NIH’s Public Access Plan) is now available for public review and comment. NIH prepared this plan to accelerate access to the results of NIH-funded research and address the guidance issued last August by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) on equitable public access to federally funded research results.

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Celebrating Love Data Week 2023

February 13-17, 2023, is Love Data Week (LDW), an international event designed to raise awareness about research data management, sharing, preservation, and—most importantly—how we at the libraries can help you! To celebrate, a variety of workshops, presentations, and drop-in help sessions have been planned throughout February.

Text reads: Love Data Week, with link to Love Data PGHTo tie in with the Pitt 2023 Year of Emotional Well-Being, many of the LDW presentations emphasize healthy learning and professional development. These sessions will help you learn to avoid getting hung up on producing the perfect code or plot, instead focusing on starting where you are and working with the tools available to you.

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This information is over 2 years old. Information was current at time of publication.

New HSLS Guide for NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy

The National Institutes of Health’s new Policy for Data Management and Sharing (DMS Policy), which goes into effect January 25, 2023, will require NIH-funded researchers to submit a plan outlining how scientific data from their research will be managed and shared within their funding application. The policy includes an expectation that researchers will maximize their data sharing within ethical, legal, or technical constraints, and it explicitly encourages researchers to incorporate data sharing, via deposit into a public repository, into their standard research process.

To help University of Pittsburgh researchers comply with the new policy, HSLS Data Services has put together a new guide, with each topic of the guide organized into three sections:

  • Learning content
  • Videos (forthcoming) and slides
  • Related resources, including official notices and guidance from the NIH

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This information is over 2 years old. Information was current at time of publication.

International Open Access Week, October 24-30: Think Globally, Learn Locally

Open access to scientific research made headlines this summer when the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a new memo on August 25, 2022, with updated requirements for federally funded research, to make publications and results freely and immediately available. Learn more about open access for scientific publications, data, and software with classes at the Health Sciences Library System during International Open Access Week, a week of global advocacy for open access to research, happening from October 24 through 30.

Whether you’re new to open access or have specific questions, drop-in sessions are a great place to talk with HSLS specialists. Join Stephen Gabrielson, the library’s Scholarly Communication Librarian, for “Open Access Drop-In Session: How Does Open Access Publishing Work?” on Monday, October 24, from 11 a.m. to noon. Bring your questions about how to publish open-access articles, sources of funding for article processing fees (APCs), how to find reputable no-APC journals, and how to self-archive your manuscript in an open-access repository. HSLS also has a guide to scholarly communication and publishing, including open-access publishing, available all the time: Scholarly Communication and Publishing Guide.

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HSLS Data Services

The success of a research project hinges on the quality of its data, and keeping clearly organized, well-documented data and analyses helps to ensure high data quality. The HSLS Data Services team can help you find, manage, publish, and share your data for any type of research project. We offer consultations, classes, and customized trainings in the following areas:

Research data management

Organizing files, writing documentation, and safely storing datasets are essential skills for managing data throughout the research lifecycle. We are available for personal consultations on research data management topics at any time, and offer workshops throughout the semester. In particular, we offer:

  • One-hour Introduction to Research Data Management classes that are suitable for everyone, but may be especially helpful for new graduate students and project staff
  • In-depth workshops on file-naming best practices, writing a data management plan for grant applications, and responsibly reusing data (or making your data available for reuse)
  • One-on-one meetings on writing and implementing a data management and sharing plan (DMSP) for the NIH’s new data management and sharing policy that goes into effect in January 2023

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This information is over 2 years old. Information was current at time of publication.

Whole Genome Sequences from a Diverse Human Population Now Available Through the All of Us Research Hub

In March 2022, the All of Us Research Program announced the release of its initial genomic dataset: nearly 100,000 whole genome sequences and 165,000 genotyping arrays, with nearly 50% coming from people who self-identify with a racial or ethnic minority group.

In an announcement about the release of the genomic data, Kelsey Mayo, Ph.D., scientific portfolio and product manager at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center Data and Research Center, states:

“What’s going to grab researchers’ attention is the diversity of the cohort. Half of our cohort is non-European. More than 90% of participants in genome-wide association studies have been of European descent. There’s just a real absence of genetic data from African, Asian, and Latino people. All of Us participants are providing this important data that’s been missing in health research. So we are going to have that new genetic information that’s been missing.”

Plans for forthcoming releases include data from participants who self-identify as American Indian or Alaska Native, with resources to provide important context for researchers.

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