New content in MANTRA: ‘Keeping research data safe’

Posted on 25 January 2022 by rsander3

We are pleased to provide an update on MANTRA, the free online research data management training resource.

The MANTRA course was developed around ten years ago to provide knowledge and training on a number of key research data management topics, including data management plans, effective organisation of data and files, and archiving and sharing research data at the end of a project.

As part of an ongoing update to MANTRA, six of the eight training modules have now been updated in order to refresh content and introduce new concepts and topics to better reflect current research data management practices and conventions.

Our most recent update is the new Unit 6: ‘Keeping research data safe’, which replaces the original ‘Storage and security’ unit covering how to store research data effectively, including keeping backups and methods to safeguard data. The new unit updates that content, and introduces a number of new topics including data classification, networked and cloud storage, password management tools, data access controls, transferring files securely, and working remotely.

Additionally, the new unit has been refreshed to include new images, videos and links to further reading to ensure it remains relevant and interesting to anyone looking to learn more about storing their research data safely and effectively.

In addition to this latest update, over the past year we have also reviewed and updated a further three modules:

Unit 2: ‘Data management planning’ – Main updates include: new videos on the topic of data management planning from the Research Data Service, and new content covering planning of a broader range of research outputs (e.g. software code, workflows, methods and protocols), and information on software management planning.

Unit 3: ‘Organising data’ – Main updates include: restructuring the content to make it easier to read and understand, and new pages on collaboration and working in teams, versioning files and using versioning tools, and managing software and code.

Unit 8: ‘FAIR sharing and access’ – Main updates include: new videos, new pages on open data, the FAIR principles, making data FAIR, open data repositories, and data access statements, plus revisions to unit summary activities.

You can also read previous blog posts about updates to Unit 1: ‘Research data in context’ (blog post) and Unit 7: ‘Protecting sensitive data’ (blog post).

We hope you find time to visit MANTRA to see what is new and to learn more about looking after your research data effectively. We will be sharing more news on MANTRA as further updates are released.

Bob Sanders
Research Data Support Assistant, L&UC

New home for Edinburgh Research Data Blog!

Posted on 28 July 2021 by Robin Rice

Tempus fugit. This Data Blog, which has been going since 2013 is now moving to Edinburgh University Libraryblogs. This follows the 2018 organisational merger of the Data Library team at EDINA with Research Data Support in Library & University Collections.

We hope you will actively subscribe to the new blog at https://libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk/datablog/ now, by entering your email address in the right navigation panel so you don’t miss any future posts!

Meanwhile we will redirect the old URL and all the older posts to the new site so you won’t have to remember where to go to catch all the news about the Research Data Service and research data management at University of Edinburgh. Any cited posts or bookmarks will continue to resolve.

Otherwise it just remains to thank our former and future hosts – EDINA, and the Digital Library – for providing the platform.

Robin Rice
Data Librarian and Head of Research Data Support
Library and University Collections

Research Data Training: Semester Two, 2020/21

Posted on 17 March 2021 by Kerry Miller

As we are still facing significant restrictions on movement and in-person events during the whole of semester 2 we have decided to continue offering our RDM (Research Data Management) training courses online only. Details of the upcoming courses are below.

For undergraduate and taught masters students we have a new course called Data Mindfulness: Making the most of your dissertation, which can be enroled on via Learn on MyEd. Alternatively the videos and workbook are available on our training page.

Our online, self-paced RDM training course, Research Data MANTRA, has also been undergoing a significant update, which will be the subject of a future blog post – it is openly accessible at https://mantra.edina.ac.uk.

Full details about each course are on our training webpage https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/research-support/research-data-service/training

Workshop	Audience	Date	Time	Booking Link
Writing A Data Management Plan for Your Research (RDS002)	Research Staff	24th March 2021	09:30 – 11:30	https://www.events.ed.ac.uk/index.cfm?event=book&scheduleId=44117
Writing A Data Management Plan for Your Research (RDS002)	All Staff & PGR’s	13th April 2021	10:00 – 12:00	https://www.events.ed.ac.uk/index.cfm?event=book&scheduleID=44862
Working with Personal and Sensitive Data (RDS003)	Research Staff	15th April 2021	09:30 – 11:30	https://www.events.ed.ac.uk/index.cfm?event=book&scheduleId=44118
Realising the Benefits of Good Research Data Management (RDS001)	All Staff & PGR’s	21 & 22 April 2021	13:30 – 15:00	Part 1 – https://www.events.ed.ac.uk/index.cfm?event=book&scheduleID=44856 Part 2 – ttps://www.events.ed.ac.uk/index.cfm?event=book&scheduleID=44861
Edinburgh DataVault: supporting users archiving their research data (RDS008)	Support staff	22nd April 2021	10:30 – 12:00	https://www.events.ed.ac.uk/index.cfm?event=showEventDetails&scheduleId=44924
Working with Personal and Sensitive Data (RDS003)	All Staff & PGR’s	26th April 2021	14:00 – 16:00	https://www.events.ed.ac.uk/index.cfm?event=book&scheduleID=44863
Realising the Benefits of Good Research Data Management (RDS001)	Research Staff	04 & 05 May 2021	13:30 – 15:00	Contact IAD directly https://www.ed.ac.uk/institute-academic-development

The following courses will not run during semester 2, but we plan to relaunch them as soon possible. In the meantime if you need any support just get in touch with us via data-support@ed.ac.uk and we’ll be happy to help.

Data Cleaning with OpenRefine (RDS004)
Handling Data Using SPSS (RDS005)
Assessing Disclosure Risk in Quantitative Data (RDS006)
Assessing Data Quality in Quantitative Data (RDS007)
Introduction to Visualising Data in ArcGIS (RDS011)
Introduction to Visualising Data in QGIS (RDS012)

A final note, the Research Data Management and Sharing MOOC which we launched with the University of North Carolina in 2016 has enjoyed its most successful period during the pandemic, with people wanting to reskill for the digital world. Over 2,700 learners have successfully completed the 5 week course and passed assessments, with over 25,000 people engaging with the highly rated course since the beginning.

—

Kerry Miller
Research Data Support Officer
Library and University Collections

‘Protecting sensitive data’: new MANTRA unit now available

Posted on 20 May 2020 by rsander3

The Research Data Support team are pleased to announce a new update to MANTRA, the free and open online research data management training course.

The new ‘Protecting sensitive data’ module has been created from scratch, replacing the previous ‘Data protection, rights and access’ unit to provide an up-to-date guide for researchers working with sensitive and personal data.

MANTRA is designed to give post-graduate students, early career researchers, and information professionals the knowledge and skills needed to work effectively with research data.

The ‘Protecting sensitive data’ unit considers the ethical and legal contexts for conducting research with sensitive data, including information and guidance on:

What makes data sensitive?
What UK and European data protection laws mean for research
Research ethics, informed consent and consent documentation
Approvals processes and accessing restricted data
Safeguarding sensitive data, including data retention limits, access controls and anonymisation
Data protection training

MANTRA is designed to be approachable and informative, and incorporates text and video content plus quizzes, interactive exercises and a ‘further reading’ section.

We hope you find the new content interesting and useful, and we welcome comments on the new unit, as well as feedback on the other seven MANTRA modules.

Finally, the RDS team are currently working on a series of further updates to MANTRA which will be rolled out over the coming weeks, and information about these releases will be posted on this blog and the RDS Twitter account.

Bob Sanders

MANTRA, Lead Editor