Planning Data Management for a Research Project
Five slides turn this week from a discussion of sampling into a data-custody sequence. They contain one usable lifecycle, one quoted regulatory instrument, four unanswered questions and a definition of data management that uses the word it is defining.
The three stages your proposal has to cover
The requirement is stated plainly and is worth quoting because it is the only place in the supplied material where data management is given a shape: "In your research proposal you need to determine how you are going to manage the data: while it is being gathered; when it is gathered and stored and; when it is being analysed."
- While it is being gathered
- When it is gathered and stored
- When it is being analysed
Three stages, counted here from the list; the source states no count. Use them as the headings of your data management section and you will have a structure the material supports directly, which is more than can be said for most of what it asks for. The gap opens immediately afterwards.
Three definitions of data management, none overlapping
This week was recorded in this library as missing from every previous delivery. Its arrival closes that absence and, on this topic, makes the position worse rather than better: the library held two incompatible definitions of data management and now holds three.
EVERY DEFINITION OF DATA MANAGEMENT THE SUBJECT SUPPLIES
| Week | Definition as given | What it covers | What it excludes |
|---|---|---|---|
| The data-collection week | "The process of data collection and analysis" | Gathering and analysing | Custody, storage, security and retention entirely |
| The quantitative-analysis week | "Becoming familiar with appropriate software, logging in, entering data and cleaning data" | A set of clerical software operations | Both collection and custody; it is a description of desk work |
| This week | "Data management is about proper management and protection of data" | Custody and protection | Collection and analysis — and it defines the term using the term |
The three are set out and not adjudicated. No two of them overlap, none acknowledges the others, and nothing in the material states which governs. The library's earlier record called the disagreement between the first two the most consequential single contradiction between those weeks; the third does not resolve it.
The practical instruction that follows is short. If you use the phrase "data management" in a proposal, an ethics application or a methodology chapter, say in the same sentence what you mean by it — the activities you are undertaking, not the label. A reader who has been taught any one of the three will otherwise assume you meant that one.
Format, access and entry: four questions, no answers
The storage slide is where a data management plan would normally be specified. It is reproduced here with its transcription defects intact, because two of the three change what the sentence appears to say.
Four questions are asked here — what format, how to access organisational data, how to scale the questions, who enters the information — and none is answered. No criterion, option list or recommendation follows any of them. "Scaling" appears only here in the week; response scales belong to a week two later and are not cross-referenced.
Security: three instructions, no method
The security material is three statements and three loss modes: "electronically or digitally stored data should be backed up"; "copies should be made"; "data can be easily lost or stolen or damaged/corrupted in some way". A fourth sentence covers movement: "If moving the data is unavoidable, it is wise to make a plan for the move which anticipates any potential risks or dangers posed to the data by the move."
Read as a risk statement that is sound — data is lost, stolen or corrupted, and moving it is the risky moment. Read as an instruction it is empty: no backup frequency, no number of copies, no storage location, no encryption, no access control, no retention period and no destruction rule appears. The one item the week has an authority for, retention, is on a slide three later, and this slide does not connect to it.
The obligation behind the storage
The week then reproduces one clause and six sub-clauses of a national code for the responsible conduct of research. This is the only quoted regulatory instrument in the supplied material and the only place in it where an obligation is stated in mandatory language. It is quoted by the teaching material, not written by it, and it should be attributed that way.
CLAUSE 2.6 — MANAGE STORAGE OF RESEARCH DATA AND PRIMARY MATERIALS, AS QUOTED
| Sub-clause | Obligation, quoted | What it asks you to produce |
|---|---|---|
| 2.6.1 | "Keep clear and accurate records of the research methods and data sources, including any approvals granted, during and after the research process." | A method and provenance record that outlives the project |
| 2.6.2 | "Ensure that research data and primary materials are kept in safe and secure storage provided, even when not in current use." | A storage arrangement that persists between working sessions |
| 2.6.3 | "Provide the same level of care and protection to primary research records, such as laboratory notebooks, as to the analysed research data." | Equal treatment of raw records and analysed files |
| 2.6.4 | "Retain research data, including electronic data, in a durable, indexed and retrievable form." | An index, and a format you can still open later |
| 2.6.5 | "Maintain a catalogue of research data in an accessible form." | A catalogue, separate from the data itself |
| 2.6.6 | "Manage research data and primary materials according to ethical protocols and relevant legislation." | A stated link to your ethics approval |
Six obligations under one clause; the count is derived, the source states none. The clause numbers are citations to an external instrument, not content figures. The instrument's opening line makes the institution's own policy the governing document — and that policy is not supplied, named or summarised anywhere in the week.
What counts as research data you have to manage
The study notes open with the question the obligations depend on: what is research data? They answer it by quoting four institutional research-data policies from a national research-data service guide, and present the four as agreeing. They do not agree.
THE FOUR QUOTED POLICIES, COMPARED
| Policy 1 | Policy 2 | Policy 3 | Policy 4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forms admitted | numerical, descriptive, visual, tactile | numerical, descriptive, visual | print, digital, physical, other | numbers, symbols, text, images, sounds |
| Processing states | raw, cleaned or processed | raw or analysed; experimental or observational | includes analysed data | not stated |
| Primary materials | not mentioned | not separated | explicitly included | explicitly distinguished |
| Test of inclusion | None | None | None | "commonly accepted in the research community as necessary to validate research findings" |
Institutions scrubbed. Only one of the four supplies a test, and that test is sociological: it makes the boundary of research data depend on what a research community accepts. A researcher applying the four to the same file could reach different answers. One of the four is described by the notes as a draft policy; nothing dates any of them.
The notes then spend a short section on the boundary that matters for retention: whether completed questionnaires and recordings are "primary materials" or "research data". It is the most analytically careful passage in the week — it states a distinction, attributes it, raises a counter-argument, tests the counter-argument against a stated definition, and reaches a conclusion. It is also borrowed rather than written by the subject.
Writing the section
The checklist below combines what the source requires with what a reader of your proposal will need anyway. Items marked as the source's are traceable to the slides or the quoted code; the rest are this page's construction and should be attributed accordingly.
A data management section that answers the material and the reader
- Source: a statement for each of the three stages — while gathering, once stored, during analysis
- Source: the storage format, and how organisational data will be accessed and downloaded
- Source: who will enter the data, and how the questions are scaled
- Source, from the quoted code: records of methods and data sources kept during and after the project
- Source, from the quoted code: a durable, indexed, retrievable retention form and a catalogue
- Added here: a fourth stage covering what happens after the project closes, with a period you have sourced and cited
- Added here: named responsibility for provision, administration and accountability of storage
- Added here: the sense in which you are using the phrase "data management", given that the material supplies three
What to carry forward
- Use the three stages as your section headings; they are the only lifecycle the material supplies, and add the fourth stage yourself.
- Three incompatible definitions of data management now sit in this subject. Say what you mean by the phrase every time you use it.
- The storage slide asks four questions and answers none. The answers are your work, and should be written as such.
- Security instructions in the material are bare imperatives. Frequency, copies, location, access control and destruction are all yours to specify.
- The six obligations of the quoted national code are the most actionable content in the week — attribute them to that code, not to the teaching material.
Frequently asked questions
What does this material actually require me to put in my proposal?
One thing, stated once: how you will manage the data while it is being gathered, once it is gathered and stored, and while it is being analysed. Everything else on the topic is either a question the slides ask and do not answer, or an obligation quoted from an external code. The three stages are a sound structure and the content under them is yours to supply.
Which definition of data management should I use?
The subject supplies three and no two overlap: the process of collection and analysis; a set of software operations; and the proper management and protection of data. This library sets out all three and does not choose between them. Name the activities you mean rather than relying on the label.
How long do I have to keep my research data?
The material never says. The quoted national code requires retention in a durable, indexed and retrievable form, and the study notes refer four times to "the recommended period" without ever quantifying it. Take a retention period from your own institution's policy and cite it there, because the policy the code defers to is not supplied in any of this material.
Are completed questionnaires research data or primary materials?
The material argues both ways in one week. The notes record the code as treating completed questionnaires and recordings as primary materials with possibly different retention standards, while the deck quotes a clause requiring identical care for primary records and analysed data. Record the ambiguity in your plan and treat both classes to the higher standard.
Does the source say anything about backups or encryption?
It says data should be backed up and that copies should be made, and nothing further. No frequency, number of copies, storage location, encryption method, access control or destruction rule appears anywhere in the week. Those decisions are yours and should be written into the proposal explicitly.
References and source attribution
- A national code for the responsible conduct of research — quoted in the supplied teaching source as the basis of the awarding institution's own code, and the source of clause 2.6 and its six sub-clauses reproduced on this page. The code's name, issuing body and address are scrubbed; the code itself is not supplied in the material.
- Bryman, A. 2016, Social Research Methods, 5th ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford.
- O'Leary, Z. 2017, The Essential Guide to Doing Your Research Project, 3rd ed., Sage Publications, London.
- Veal, A. J. 2005, Business Research Methods: A Managerial Approach, Longman.
- The supplied teaching source: the slide deck on the nature of quantitative research, in particular its five slides on managing, storing and securing data, together with both copies of the accompanying study notes and the four institutional research-data policy definitions they quote from a national research-data service guide.
Suggested questions for Ask KEVOS
- Draft the data management section of my proposal using the three stages this material supplies.
- Turn the six obligations of the quoted code into a checklist I can apply to my own project.
- What retention period applies to my data, and what do I need to check that the material does not tell me?
- Write the storage, access and data-entry paragraphs for a project drawing on my organisation's records.
- Which parts of my data management plan come from this source and which are mine?