RDIM Step 2 - Manage

Step 2 - Manage

Managing your data well will ultimately save you time and resources. At the very least, it will prevent errors and increase the quality of your analysis. If it’s your first time developing a research project, you may feel a little unprepared to face the challenges that are ahead. Take advantage of all the support services, technologies and best practice examples that are available.

This is a cyclic period where data is generated, organised, analysed and then finalised prior to publishing and archiving.

You may find the DIKW Model useful to help understand the transformation of data to information and finally wisdom.

2.1 Generate Data

Not all the research data you use has to be created by you. There are many data sources you may find useful and Google has also introduced Dataset Search which uses AI to search across multiple repositories.

2.2 Organise Data

Organising your data is an important part of any research project. Setting up Folder Structures, File Formats, File Names and Version Control can save an enormous amount of time later on.

2.3 Analyse Data

Analysing your data is the most crucial part of your research project during which you will be summarising and interpreting enormous amounts of data to make meaningful and useful patterns, relationships and trends.

2.4 Finalise Data

When finalising your research findings, remember that not all your active (working) data and information needs to be or is suitable to be retained, calculations and analysis you have used to transform your data into information is often not required.