A responsible research data Management is an essential requirement of good scientific practice and provides a solid foundation for excellent research. While training of data management skills for researchers has been established in many universities, courses for students are still very rare. We have been offering an interdisciplinary seminar on research data management for students since 2013. Since then, the course has been visited by over 200 students, whose disciplines range from computer science, physics and biology to philosophy and history. The course motivates why research data management is important, what challenges have to be met, and which solutions are available. Our aim is to enable students to apply the contents of the course in their own research work. Therefore, we chose a competency-based approach to teaching, i.e. we use interactive exercises as much as possible and try to root these in the specific disciplinary backgrounds of the students.
Wiljes, C. and Cimiano, P., 2019. Teaching Research Data Management for Students. Data Science Journal, 18(1), p.38. DOI:http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2019-038 |
Documenting the methodology and results of experiments and observations has been an essential part of good scientific practice from the very beginning of science. Consequently, research data management has always been relevant for researchers. With the advent of digital data, computer-based analysis and the internet, the way scientific work is done has been revolutionized. To keep up with rapid transformation, one needs competent and informed researchers who can apply new methods of research data management effectively and responsibly.
In a survey conducted by Nature (Baker and Penny, 2016) among 1,576 researchers, the question “Is there a reproducibility crisis?” was asked. 52% of participants answered with “Yes, a significant crisis” and 30% with “Yes, a slight crisis”. When asked for factors to boost reproduciblity, 80% of participants named “Better Teaching”. Therefore, the topic of research data management needs to be integrated into the academic education of young researchers as early as possible.
Bielefeld University is a rather young university in Germany and has about 24,000 students, 2,700 employees and 260 professors. The Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC) is an institute funded by the German Excellence Initiative. In 2012 CITEC released the CITEC Open Science Manifesto to express its strong commitment to the ideals of Open Science. Regarding teaching, the Open Science Manifesto stated:
“CITEC recognizes the need to extend the educational curriculum for young scientists towards topics of research data management and offers training and personal consulting for advanced researchers, thus contributing to awareness among young researchers of good practice in scientific research.”
Consequently, CITEC started a seminar on research data management in October 2013, which has been offered every winter semester since then. The seminar is interdisciplinary, consists of 15 sessions of 1.5 h each. Since 2015 it is being held in English and since 2016 it is included as an optional module in two degree programmes of computer science.
- Tomado de: Data Science Journal
- How to Cite: Wiljes, C. and Cimiano, P., 2019. Teaching Research Data Management for Students. Data Science Journal, 18(1), p.38. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2019-038
