Research Data Management Policy And Institutional Framework

Data created from research is a valuable resource and usually requires much time and money to be produced. Research data is the data that is collected, observed, or created for purposes of analysis to produce original research results. Research data has significant value in responsible research, which refers to the ability to justify conclusions on the basis of the data acquired and generated through research and that is furnished to other researchers for scrutiny and/or verification. This data can be used and reused for future scientific and educational purposes. Research data management is becoming increasingly important and it is beneficial for the institutions as well as for the researchers. It helps institutions to increase impact and visibility of their research and simultaneously helps researchers to keep their data secure, improve the opportunities for collaboration for further research, more research publications and increased citations. This paper discusses some of the key issues related to research data management, roles and responsibilities of the institutions as well as the research scholar, cost and infrastructure, data sharing policies, legal and ethical issues, copyright issues, etc. An attempt has been made to depict and present suitable policies with a policy framework. Work flow chart with adoption of best practices in RDM is given, that will boost the research process in an organisation. The main objective of this paper is to provide suggestions and recommendations for successful research data management based on some of the best practices and principles of RDM adopted by the institutions worldwide.

I. Introduction

Information is the basic input for human growth and socioeconomic development. Information is obtained through processing of data wherein data is the raw material and a building block for obtaining information. Thus the storage, retrieval and processing of data becomes crucial for research work. The advent of new technology related to the RDM tools has led to great emphasis on quality data management. RDM is a system that is capable of storage, retrieval & maintenance of data. Research data in this context can be framed of text (including numeric and date data), images, audio, video and other multimedia objects. RDM thus consists of a software program that facilitates patrons in finding the information they need.