There are a number of reasons why researchers plan for life cycle management of their data, including data archiving. Effective data management can:

• Increase profile of your work
• Make grant proposals more competitive
• Ensure long-term access and effective digital stewardship of your work
• Enable other researchers to utilize and build on your work
• Support compliance with the expectations or requirements of funding bodies

Creative Commons Flickr photo by: Ian-S

A data management plan (DMP) is a formal document that outlines how you will handle your data both during your research, and after the project is completed. The goal of a data management plan is to consider the many aspects of data management, metadata generation, data preservation, and analysis before the project begins; this ensure that data are well-managed in the present, and prepared for preservation in the future.

The DMP Assistant from the Portage Network is an online tool that Canadian university researchers may use to support the creation of their data management plan.

VIUSpace

VIUSpace is a digital repository created to capture, distribute and provide stable long-term storage for digital products of VIU faculty, researchers, and senior students. https://viuspace.viu.ca/

Vancouver Island University Dataverse

The Vancouver Island University Dataverse is a research data repository for VIU faculty, students, and staff. Files are held in a secure environment on Canadian servers. Researchers can choose to make content available to the public, to specific individuals, or to keep it locked.

Individual Consultation

You may arrange an appointment to discuss your data management needs.  Contact Library Research Help.

Produced by Piers Video Production, this short documentary, Digital Curation Centre: Managing Research Data, offers a unique insight into the importance of providing access to research data and the risks of not managing data effectively. It also explains how the DCC could help researchers, research support staff and HE institutions by offering guidance, training and tools. 

Closed captioning (on-screen display of the video's text transcription) is available, please click on a 'cc' button to enable captioning during playback.

• Working with electronic data? Take the MANTRA Data Management Training course.This is a non-credit, free course which provides guidelines for good practice in research data management.  The course is particularly appropriate for postgraduate students and early career researchers who work with data and would like to learn more about managing their research data. The course content is mainly geared for three disciplines: geosciences, social and political sciences and clinical psychology, however, many of the issues covered apply equally to all research disciplines.

Need assistance? Contact us at VIU Library or Scholarship, Research, and Creative Activity (SRCA).

• When you have data: Dana McFarland, Scholarly Communication
• When you need data: Jean Blackburn, Data Services
• Funding considerations and data: Bettina Ruhstein, Research Contracts & Grants Facilitator