BOKU Magazin 2/2023

Are you familiar with Research Data -
RDM, DMP, ORD, FAIR …?
Since big data has become a buzzword, data and its reusability have also become an issue in the research
cycle that we need to address. By Anna Laetitia Hikl, Lisa-Ariadne Schmidt, Lada Fialova, Daniel Dörler, Florian Heigl
In the current calls for proposals, almost
every major funding body wants
to know
O what data is being produced
O where is the data being stored
during and after research
O who has access to the data
O is the data open
O what licence is being used
O are the data and metadata FAIR
O etc. …
Questions about data, collecting data,
processing data, storing data, standards,
responsibilities, sensible data, data protection,
… All of these aspects are part
of research data management (RDM) and
should be described in a data management
plan (DMP) which starts to be mandatory
in nearly every funded project. Additionally,
these data (and metadata) should
be FAIR, meaning findable, accessible,
interoperable and reusable. The idea is to
have freely accessible data for everyone.
Nevertheless, open research data (ORD)
is not a condition for FAIR data, as a
restricted access to a data can also be
justified and necessary depending on
the type of data. All these issues have
to be thoroughly considered before your
data management plan has been prepared,
where particularly consistency
with a strategy for intellectual property
seems to be a bottleneck in producing a
high-quality and reliable data management
plan. The whole procedure might
be quite complex, as shown in Figure 1.
To be on the safe side and in accordance
with the overall guiding principle „As
open as possible, as closed as necessary“,
BOKU has established a new service unit
RDM Service which provides consultancy
in all matters related data management
plan during project preparation
and – implementation.
CITIZEN SCIENCE
A specific type of approach producing
research data thus having impact on data
By default, all data are open and should be
published, depending on the rules of the
respective funding program
Research Data
Management
(RDM)
In principle, all
data must be
published
Application phase
In which
repositories
can my dataset be
published?
Contact
RDM expert
for suitable
repositories
Data Management Plan
(DMP) Preparation Phase
Record
repositories
in data management
plan
Project implementation phase
Upload data sets to a
suitable data repository
Publish results Open
Access
LADA FIALOVA
No
Contact RDM expert
First IP protection,
then publication
Can an
invention or
commercially
exploitable IP
be created?
Is Citizen
Science funded
in the funding
program?
Yes
Contact Citizen
Science experts
Include in data
management plan
No
Yes/I do not know
Contact RDM expert
Report invention to
Technology Transfer
Team –> official duty
Yes
Contact
Technology
Transfer Team
Develop IPR
strategy
Record
planned invention
or IP in data
management plan
An invention or
commercially
exploitable IP
is created?
Figure 1: Workflow research data management
56 BOKU Magazin 2 | 2023