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Your role: Data Steward: research

Description

As a research data steward, I support and work in close collaboration with the main data producers and users in academia: the researchers, ranging from undergraduate students to full professors. I advise researchers, make sure data is handled in a manner compliant with the institute’s policy and may also perform hands-on work in a project.

My work focuses on implementing the institute’s data guidelines and translating them into domain and project specific procedures, for example by managing a database or reviewing data management plans. My responsibilities and tasks focus on translating the researcher needs on data into infrastructural and service requirements.

Focus

  • Develop and implement data management plans for projects and data collections and align Data Managements Plans (DMP) with the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles and the principles of Open Science
  • Advise projects and data collections on compliance with codes of conduct, regulations and field specific legal and ethical standards
  • Provide adequate research data management (RDM) support to researchers. This involves, for example, supporting researchers in improving the reproducibility of their computational analyses or directing researchers to appropriate data management and archival solutions
  • Monitor a project’s needs regarding data-infrastructure and tools for RDM
  • Determine the adequate level of knowledge and skills of researchers on RDM
  • Identify the requirements of adequate support and data infrastructure for FAIR and long-term archiving of data of a project

Learning path

Institutes across Europe have started hiring professional data stewards. A research oriented data steward is expected to be competent in the following areas:

  • Create awareness and communicate about RDM and the FAIR data principles and translate RDM policies into guidelines for researchers
  • Transform discipline specific research data into FAIR data with help of available services and tools
  • Advise and assist researchers on short and long term actions for RDM
  • Assess RDM knowledge and skills, identify gaps among researchers and take action when needed
  • Understand the purpose and use of a DMP in a project and have the skills to utilise the available tools and templates to produce a DMP
  • Assist researchers in developing a DMP, review DMPs, and support researchers in putting DMPs into action
  • Liaise with the surrounding environment (department, project, national stakeholders and international network) and continuously follow the field to gain knowledge of relevant facilities, tools and emerging standards available for RDM

Related pages

More information

Relevant tools and resources

Skip tool table
Tool or resource Description Related pages Registry
Argos Plan and follow your data. Bring your Data Management Plans closer to where data are generated, analysed and stored. Data management plan Researcher
Atlas Free, publicly available web-based, open-source software application developed by the OHDSI community to support the design and execution of observational analyses to generate real world evidence from patient level observational data. Researcher TransMed Tool info Training
BBMRI-ERIC's ELSI Knowledge Base The ELSI Knowledge Base is an open-access resource platform that aims at providing practical know-how for responsible research. Data protection Sensitive data Data Steward: policy Human data
Beacon The Beacon protocol defines an open standard for genomics data discovery. Researcher Data Steward: infrastructure Human data Tool info Training
BisQue Resource for management and analysis of 5D biological images Data organisation Data analysis Bioimaging data Tool info
Bitbucket Git based code hosting and collaboration tool, built for teams. Data organisation Data Steward: infrastructure Standards/Databases
Bulk Rename Utility File renaming software for Windows Data organisation Researcher
Castor Castor is an EDC system for researchers and institutions. With Castor, you can create and customize your own database in no time. Without any prior technical knowledge, you can build a study in just a few clicks using our intuitive Form Builder. Simply define your data points and start collecting high quality data, all you need is a web browser. Identifiers Data Steward: infrastructure Tool info
CEDAR CEDAR is making data submission smarter and faster, so that scientific researchers and analysts can create and use better metadata. Documentation and metadata Machine actionability Researcher Tool info Standards/Databases
Choose a license Choose an open source license Licensing Researcher Data Steward: policy
Cookiecutter A command-line utility that creates projects from cookiecutters (project templates), e.g. creating a Python package project from a Python package project template. Data organisation Data Steward: infrastructure
Create a Codebook Examples and tools to create a codebook by the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) Documentation and metadata Researcher
Creative Commons License Chooser It helps you choose the right Creative Commons license for your needs. Licensing Researcher Data Steward: policy
Crop Ontology The Crop Ontology compiles concepts to curate phenotyping assays on crop plants, including anatomy, structure and phenotype. Researcher Data Steward: infrastructure Plant sciences Standards/Databases Training
Cytomine-IMS Image Data management Bioimaging data
Data Curation Centre Metadata list List of metadata standards Documentation and metadata Researcher
Data INRAE Dataverse for life sciences and agronomic related data Plant sciences Plant Genomics Researcher Standards/Databases
Data Stewardship Wizard Publicly available online tool for composing smart data management plans Different instances available Data management plan Researcher Data Steward: infrastructure NeLS TSD Tool info Training
Data Use Ontology DUO allows to semantically tag datasets with restriction about their usage. Researcher Human data Standards/Databases Training
DATAVERSE Open source research data respository software. Different instances available Data storage Researcher Data Steward: infrastructure IFB Training
DMP Canvas Generator Questionnaire, which generates a pre-filled a DMP Data management plan Researcher
DMPlanner Semi-automatically generated, searchable catalogue of resources that are relevant to data management plans. Data management plan Researcher
DMPonline A free tool to write, share and export a data management plan. Built-in data management plan templates for many major funders. Data management plan Researcher Training
DMPRoadmap DMP Roadmap is a Data Management Planning tool. Different instances available Data management plan Researcher
DMPTool Build your Data Management Plan Data management plan Researcher
e!DAL-PGP Plant Genomics and Phenomics Research Data Repository Plant sciences Plant Genomics Researcher Data Steward: infrastructure Data publication Standards/Databases
EasyDMP DMP creation, versioning and sharing Data management plan Researcher
ECPGR Hub for the identification of plant genetic resources in Europe Plant sciences Researcher
ELIXIR Deposition Databases for Biomolecular Data List of discipline-specific deposition databases recommended by ELIXIR. Data publication Researcher Data Steward: infrastructure COVID-19 Data Portal NeLS IFB CSC Standards/Databases
EMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup Service EMBL-EBI’s web portal for finding ontologies Documentation and metadata Researcher
EMBL-EBI's data submission wizard EMBL-EBI's wizard for finding the right EMBL-EBI repository for your data. Data publication Researcher
EUDAT licence selector wizard EUDAT's wizard for finding the right licence for your data or code. Licensing Researcher Data Steward: policy
EURISCO European Search Catalogue for Plant Genetic Resources Plant sciences Researcher Tool info
FAIDARE FAIDARE is a tool allowing to search data across dinstinct databases that implemented BrAPI. Researcher Plant sciences IFB Tool info
FAIR Cookbook FAIR Cookbook is an online resource for the Life Sciences with recipes that help you to make and keep data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) Compliance monitoring & measurement TransMed
FAIR Evaluation Services Resources and guidelines to assess the FAIRness of digital resources. Compliance monitoring & measurement Data Steward: policy
FAIRassist.org Help you discover resources to measure and improve FAIRness. Compliance monitoring & measurement Data Steward: policy
fairsharing A curated, informative and educational resource on data and metadata standards, inter-related to databases and data policies. Documentation and metadata Data publication Data Steward: policy Researcher Microbial biotechnology Existing data Standards/Databases Training
GA4GH Data Security Toolkit Principled and practical framework for the responsible sharing of genomic and health-related data. Data publication Data Steward: policy Data Steward: infrastructure Human data Sensitive data
GA4GH Genomic Data Toolkit Open standards for genomic data sharing. Data Steward: infrastructure Human data
GA4GH Regulatory and Ethics toolkit Framework for Responsible Sharing of Genomic and Health-Related Data Data protection Sensitive data Data Steward: policy Data Steward: infrastructure Human data
Git Distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects Data organisation Data Steward: infrastructure Training
GitHub Versioning system, used for sharing code, as well as for sharing of small data Data publication Data organisation Data Steward: infrastructure Standards/Databases Standards/Databases Training
GitLab GitLab is an open source end-to-end software development platform with built-in version control, issue tracking, code review, CI/CD, and more. Self-host GitLab on your own servers, in a container, or on a cloud provider. Data organisation Data publication Data Steward: infrastructure Standards/Databases Training
Harvard Medical School - ELN Comparison Grid ELN Comparison Grid by Hardvard Medical School Documentation and metadata Identifiers Researcher
How to License Research Data - DCC Guidelines about how to license research data from Digital Curation Centre Licensing Researcher Data Steward: policy
HumanMine HumanMine integrates many types of human data and provides a powerful query engine, export for results, analysis for lists of data and FAIR access via web services. Data organisation Researcher Human data Data analysis Tool info Standards/Databases Training
Identifiers.org The Identifiers.org Resolution Service provides consistent access to life science data using Compact Identifiers. Compact Identifiers consist of an assigned unique prefix and a local provider designated accession number (prefix:accession). Identifiers Data Steward: infrastructure Tool info Standards/Databases
ISA-tools Open source framework and tools helping to manage a diverse set of life science, environmental and biomedical experiments using the Investigation Study Assay (ISA) standard Data Steward: infrastructure Microbial biotechnology Machine actionability Standards/Databases
Linked Open Vocabularies (LOV) Web portal for finding ontologies Documentation and metadata Researcher
MIADE Minimum Information About Disorder Experiments (MIADE) standard Documentation and metadata Researcher Intrinsically disordered proteins
MIAPPE Minimum Information About a Plant Phenotyping Experiment Documentation and metadata Researcher Plant sciences Plant Genomics Standards/Databases Training
MIGS/MIMS Minimum Information about a (Meta)Genome Sequence Documentation and metadata Researcher Marine metagenomics Microbial biotechnology Standards/Databases
MIxS Minimum Information about any (x) Sequence Documentation and metadata Researcher Marine metagenomics Plant Genomics Standards/Databases Training
Molgenis Molgenis is a modular web application for scientific data. Molgenis provides researchers with user friendly and scalable software infrastructures to capture, exchange, and exploit the large amounts of data that is being produced by scientific organisations all around the world. Identifiers Data Steward: infrastructure Tool info
MRI2DICOM a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) converter from ParaVision® (Bruker, Inc. Billerica, MA) file format to DICOM standard Researcher XNAT-PIC
MyTardis A file-system based platform handling the transfer of data Data transfer Bioimaging data
OHDSI Multi-stakeholder, interdisciplinary collaborative to bring out the value of health data through large-scale analytics. All our solutions are open-source. Researcher Data analysis Data storage TransMed Toxicology data Tool info
OMERO OMERO is an open-source client-server platform for managing, visualizing and analyzing microscopy images and associated metadata Documentation and metadata Data Steward: infrastructure Data storage OMERO Bioimaging data Tool info Training
Ontobee A web portal to search and visualise ontologies Documentation and metadata Researcher Standards/Databases
ONTOMATON OntoMaton facilitates ontology search and tagging functionalities within Google Spreadsheets. Researcher Data Steward: infrastructure Documentation and metadata Identifiers
Open Definition Conformant Licenses Licenses that are conformant with the principles laid out in the Open Definition. Licensing Researcher Data Steward: policy
OpenEBench ELIXIR benchmarking platform to support community-led scientific benchmarking efforts and the technical monitoring of bioinformatics reosurces Data analysis Data Steward: infrastructure Tool info
OSF OSF (Open Science Framework) is a free, open platform to support your research and enable collaboration. Data storage Researcher Training
RDA Standards Directory of standard metadata, divided into different research areas Documentation and metadata Researcher
REDCap REDCap is a secure web application for building and managing online surveys and databases. While REDCap can be used to collect virtually any type of data in any environment, it is specifically geared to support online and offline data capture for research studies and operations. Different instances available Identifiers Data Steward: infrastructure Data quality Tool info
Renamer4Mac File renaming software for Mac Data organisation Researcher
Repository Finder Repository Finder can help you find an appropriate repository to deposit your research data. The tool is hosted by DataCite and queries the re3data registry of research data repositories. Data publication Researcher
Research Management Plan Machine actionable DMPs. Data management plan Researcher
Research Object Crate (RO-Crate) RO-Crate is a lightweight approach to packaging research data with their metadata, using schema.org. An RO-Crate is a structured archive of all the items that contributed to the research outcome, including their identifiers, provenance, relations and annotations. Documentation and metadata Data storage Data organisation Researcher Microbial biotechnology Machine actionability Standards/Databases
Rightfield RightField is an open-source tool for adding ontology term selection to Excel spreadsheets Researcher Documentation and metadata Microbial biotechnology Identifiers Machine actionability Tool info
Schemapedia Web portal for finding ontologies Documentation and metadata Researcher
Scientific Data's Recommended Repositories List of respositories recommended by Scientific Data, contains both discipline-specific and general repositories. Data publication Researcher Data Steward: infrastructure
semares All-in-one platform for life science data management, semantic data integration, data analysis and visualization Researcher Documentation and metadata Data analysis Data Steward: infrastructure Data storage
Talend Talend is an open source data integration platform. Researcher TransMed
The Open Biological and Biomedical Ontology (OBO) Foundry Collaborative effort to develob interoperable ontologies for the biological sciences Documentation and metadata Researcher Standards/Databases
tranSMART Knowledge management and high-content analysis platform enabling analysis of integrated data for the purposes of hypothesis generation, hypothesis validation, and cohort discovery in translational research. Researcher Data analysis Data storage TransMed Tool info
Tryggve ELSI Checklist A list of Ethical, Legal, and Societal Implications (ELSI) to consider for research projects on human subjects Sensitive data Data Steward: policy Human data NeLS CSC TSD
University of Cambridge - Electronic Research Notebook Products List of Electronic Research Notebook Products by University of Cambridge Documentation and metadata Identifiers Researcher
Wellcome Open Research - Data Guidelines Wellcome Open Research requires that the source data underlying the results are made available as soon as an article is published. This page provides information about data you need to include, where your data can be stored, and how your data should be presented. Data publication Researcher
WorkflowHub WorkflowHub is a registry for describing, sharing and publishing scientific computational workflows. Data publication Researcher Tool info Standards/Databases
XNAT-PIC Pipelines Analysing of single or multiple subjects within the same project in XNAT Researcher Data analysis XNAT-PIC
XNAT-PIC Uploader Import tool for multimodal DICOM image datasets to XNAT Researcher XNAT-PIC
Zooma Find possible ontology mappings for free text terms in the ZOOMA repository. Documentation and metadata Researcher Tool info Training
National resources
RDM Guide

RDM Guide describes Belgian data management guidelines, resources, tools and services available for researchers in Life Sciences.

Researcher
ENA upload tool

The program submits experimental data and respective metadata to the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA).

Data Steward: infrastructure Researcher
DMPonline.be

This instance of DMPonline is provided by the DMPbelgium Consortium. We can help you write and maintain data management plans for your research.

DMPRoadmap
Researcher Data management plan
PIPPA

PIPPA, the PSB Interface for Plant Phenotype Analysis, is the central web interface and database that provides the tools for the management of the plant imaging robots on the one hand, and the analysis of images and data on the other hand.

Plant sciences Researcher Data Steward: infrastructure
Belnet

Belnet is the privileged partner of higher education, research and administration for connectivity. We provide high-bandwidth internet access and related services for our specific target groups.

Researcher Data Steward: infrastructure Data transfer
Flemish Supercomputing Center (VSC)

VSC is the Flanders’ most highly integrated high-performance research computing environment, providing world-class services to government, industry, and researchers.

Data Steward: infrastructure Data analysis Data storage
e!DAL-PGP

Plant Genomics and Phenomics Research Data Repository

Data storage Documentation and metadata Researcher Data Steward: infrastructure Plant sciences Plant Genomics
GHGA

The German Human Genome-Phenome Archive

Data storage Documentation and metadata Researcher
FAIRDOM-SEEK

Data management platform for organising, sharing and publishing research datasets, models, protocols, samples, publications and other research outcomes.

Data storage Documentation and metadata Researcher Data Steward: infrastructure
PANGAEA

Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science

Data storage Documentation and metadata Researcher
PUBLISSO

Open access publishing platform for life sciences

Data publication Researcher
REDCap Estonia

This is the Estonian instance of REDCap, which is a secure web platform for building and managing online databases and surveys.

REDCap
Data quality
Red Española de Supercomputación

The Spanish Supercomputing Network’s mission is to offer the resources and services of supercomputing and data management necessary for the development of innovative and high-quality scientific and technological projects, through competitive calls based on the scientific excellence of the projects to be developed.

Researcher Data Steward: infrastructure
RedIRIS

Spanish academic and research network that provides advanced communication services to the scientific community and national universities.

Researcher Data Steward: infrastructure
Recolecta

The national aggregator of open access repositories. This platform brings together all the Spanish digital infrastructures in which open access research results are published and / or deposited.

Researcher Data Steward: infrastructure
Datos.gob.es

Open data portal of the spanish government. A meeting point for the various actors that make up the open data ecosystem.

Researcher Data Steward: infrastructure
DMPTuuli

Data management planning tool (Finland)

DMPRoadmap
CSC Researcher Data management plan
Fairdata.fi

With the Fairdata Services you can store, share and publish your research data with easy-to-use web tools.

CSC Researcher Data storage Data publication Existing data
Federated EGA Finland

FEGA allows you to store and shaare sensitive data in Finland in a way that fulfils all the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

CSC Researcher Sensitive data Data publication Existing data Human data
Findata

The Health and Social Data Permit Authority. Findata offers services and enables secure and efficient utilisation of data materials containing health and social data.

CSC Researcher Sensitive data Existing data Human data
Fingenious

Finnish Biobank Cooperative (FINBB) connects researchers to Finnish biomedical research. Via Fingenious® services the researcher can connect to all Finnish public bio banks.

CSC Researcher Sensitive data Human data
Sensitive Data Services for Research

CSC Sensitive Data Services for Research are designed to support secure sensitive data management through web-user interfaces accessible from the user’s own computer

CSC Researcher Sensitive data Data analysis Data storage Data publication Human data
High performance computing

CSC Supercomputers Puhti, Mahti and LUMI performance ranges from medium scale simulations to one of the most competitive supercomputers in the world.

CSC Researcher Data analysis
Cloud computing

CSC offers a variety of cloud computing services: the Pouta IaaS services and the Rahti container cloud service.

CSC Researcher Data analysis
DMP OPIDoR

Online questionnaire for the development of data management plans - repository of DMPs

DMPRoadmap
IFB Researcher Data management plan
RETTE

System for Risk and compliance. Processing of personal data in research and student projects at UiB.

Human data Data protection Sensitive data Data Steward: policy
BioData.pt Service Hub

BioData.pt Service Hub includes several data management resources, tools and services available for researchers in Life Sciences.

Researcher Data analysis Data storage
BioData.pt Data Management Portal (DMPortal)

This instance of DataVerse is provided by the BioData.pt. We can help you write and maintain data management plans for your research.

DATAVERSE
Researcher Data storage
BioData.pt Data Stewardship Wizard

Local instance of Data Stewardship Wizard. You can use this tool to create your own Data Management Plans.

Data Stewardship Wizard
Researcher Data management plan
DMPonline

DMPonline is a web-based tool that supports researchers to develop data management and sharing plans. It contains the latest funder templates and best practice guidelines to support users to create good quality DMPs.

DMPRoadmap
Researcher Data management plan
COPO

COPO is an open source data brokering platform that helps researchers annotate their data with metadata conforming to repository standards, and supports submission of data to a number of these public repositories

Researcher Documentation and metadata
Contributors