Reusing or collecting data

Tip: Why is this topic important
» Defining what data that will be analysed within your project is an important core element when designing your research project. And identifying reusable data will often be a very effective way of starting the planning of a project, and thus you should always check whether excisting data can be of relevance to your project.
» Defining how project data will be collected will also help when defining data management roles and delegate data management in the project
» Defining how data will be created, possivbly reused, and flow both in and out of your project, will contribute to Open Data and Open Science practices.

About this chapter

In this chapter you are asked to define what data that will be included in your project, including both data originating outside of your project, as well as data that will be collected by yourself or other project members.

Question-specific guidance

The project will (re)use dataset(s) or record(s) available in a repository/registry/archive

On a general level, almost all research projects are based on using excisting digital sources for producing knowledge. And when searching for relevant digital sources, you should search for both research publications as well as search for relevant datasets. Some much-used services when searching for excisting data:

Not all data from conducted research within your research field will be open and unrestricted. But very often, even restriceted and closed data(sets) of relevance can be findable by reference in publications, or by searchable metadata within registers and the like. Some examples in Norway can be:

There can of course be a number of reasons to discard the idea of reusing data in your project, like lack of relevance for excisting data etc. Taking the time to identifying such reasons (when designing your project) will most often motivate the nesessity of collecting new data both for yourself, project members and collaborators.

The project will collect data through observations, questionnaires or interviews

If relevant for your project: Describe how data will be collected through observations, questionnaires or interviews.

The project will collect physical samples

If relevant for your project: Describe how data will be collected in form of physical samples, and in form of digital twins of such physical samples. Think thru and identify how data will be described in the collecting process.

The project will capture data using measurement equipment

If relevant for your project: Describe how data will be collected by using masurement equipment, and think through the use of lab journals to document experimental activity.

The project will generate research software or code

If relevant for your project: Describe how research software or code will be generated in the project, and think through the possible use of version control and git(?)

The project will generate computational data or models

If relevant for your project: Describe how computational data or models will be produced in the project, and think through the use of version control and git(?)