Summary and Setup
Workshop overview
Good research data management (RDM) is essential for reproducible, impactful science, yet it is rarely taught as part of a chemistry degree. This workshop gives PhD students and postdocs working in chemistry the practical knowledge and skills to manage their research data effectively, from the first day of a project to long after publication.
Part 1 (Episodes 1–5) covers general research data management principles: planning, storing, organising, sharing, and licensing data, with reference to UK funder requirements and the FAIR principles.
Part 2 (Episodes 6–11) applies these principles to the specific challenges of chemistry research: reproducibility, electronic lab notebooks, metadata standards for spectroscopic data, chemistry-specific repositories, managing data from analytical techniques, and the UK Physical Sciences Data Infrastructure (PSDI).
Episode timings
| # | Episode | Teaching | Exercises | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Why Does Research Data Management Matter? | 10 min | 5 min | 15 min |
| 2 | Planning Your Data | 15 min | 10 min | 25 min |
| 3 | FAIR Data Principles | 10 min | 10 min | 20 min |
| 4 | Data Storage, Security, and Organisation | 10 min | 10 min | 20 min |
| 5 | Sharing, Preserving, and Licensing Your Data | 10 min | 10 min | 20 min |
| Break | 10–15 min | |||
| 6 | The Reproducibility Crisis in Chemistry | 10 min | 5 min | 15 min |
| 7 | Electronic Lab Notebooks for Chemists | 12 min | 3 min | 15 min |
| 8 | Metadata and Chemical Data Standards | 12 min | 8 min | 20 min |
| 9 | Chemistry Data Repositories and Databases | 12 min | 8 min | 20 min |
| 10 | Managing Data from Common Chemistry Techniques | 12 min | 8 min | 20 min |
| 11 | PSDI and the Chemistry Data Landscape | 10 min | 0 min | 10 min |
| Total (excl. break) | 123 min | 77 min | 200 min |
The workshop follows the hands-on, participatory style of The Carpentries, with short teaching episodes interspersed with practical challenges.
Prerequisites
No prior knowledge of research data management is required. The workshop is designed for a mixed audience from those encountering RDM concepts for the first time to those with some awareness who want to deepen their understanding.
Participants should:
- Have a laptop with a web browser and internet access
- Be working in (or about to start) a chemistry-related research project
What You Need
To participate in this workshop you will need:
- A laptop with a web browser and internet access
- A text editor capable of opening plain text files (e.g. VS Code, Notepad++, TextEdit, or any editor you are comfortable with)
No specialist software is required. All exercises are self-contained within the episode materials and use only a web browser and text editor.
Accounts
For one of the exercises you will use the NCI/CADD Chemical Identifier Resolver, which is freely accessible and does not require an account.