Throughout 2019, CESSDA data experts take you on a tour of best practices in data management and discovery, complementing our Data Management Expert Guide. Travel with us to learn where and how to find data resources fit for your research. Gain skills in how to make your research data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR).

The tour so far

The voyage started with a Data Discovery webinar on 25 April 2019, by Johana Chylíková and Martin Vávra of the Czech Social Science Data Archive (CSDA). They took the international audience of doctoral students, librarians, data managers and others on a tour through the core elements of the data discovery process for secondary analysis, with specific tasks for researchers to take:

• identification of the purpose of the specific data use intended
• finding an appropriate data resource
• setting up a search query
• selecting suitable data
• evaluation of the data quality
• proper citation of data resources used.

They also explained different data access policies that repositories may have and possible related costs. Guest speaker Kristýna Bašná from the Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences shared her personal experiences with discovering data in the context of her research on civic culture and democracy. For her analysis she searched for data resources with variables representing the concept of political culture. She merged data from the World Value Survey (WVS), the European Value Survey (EVS), the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) and Eurobarometer.

The slides and the recording of this webinar can be revisited at any time.

A "train the trainer" workshop in Athens on 14 May 2019 took 22 participants from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Portugal, Serbia and Ukraine on a whistle-stop tour around the CESSDA Data Management Expert Guide (DMEG). The aim was to familiarise them with the content and resources of the guide, in particular the new materials on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Data Discovery, so that they can use this guide to deliver data training to their researchers. For this group representing various academic disciplines - computational sciences, social sciences, librarianship and linguistics - data management and data training was the common interest.

Attendees recognised the importance of researchers becoming more literate when it comes to data management. Knowledge, practices and ideas were shared and the discussions throughout the day provided CESSDA instructors with useful insights for future events. ‘The content was useful for my work/studies’ and ‘I will be able to use the presented materials to provide training within my institution’ was some of the feedback given.

The road ahead

Travel from your armchair via our series of short training videos. The brand new CESSDA Data Management Expert Guide video, released in time for IASSIST2019, shows you how to become an expert in managing your own research data using this guide as your tool. More videos will follow in the second half of the year on Data Discovery, FAIR Data and a series on “A day in the life of ….” various repository professionals. All videos will be accessible on the CESSDA Training YouTube channel.

On 27 June 2019, data protection experts from across Europe will convene virtually for a panel discussion webinar on “The GDPR and research one year on: experiences across Europe”. One year after the introduction of the GDPR, they will give their views on what changes this has brought to research, data archiving and data sharing and how researchers and institutions have implemented the GDPR. Brief presentations will be followed by an interactive panel discussion, where participants are encouraged to ask questions in advance or during the webinar. Register here.

Our experts will also share their expertise at summer school events throughout Europe, via an Open Access to Research Data course at the GESIS summer school, 1-2 August 2019, and Data Discovery sessions at the Essex Summer School in Social Science Data Analysis and the Ljubljana Doctoral Summer School at the Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana.

Photo credits: CESSDA