Data management

Good practice in Research Data Management (RDM) is a crucial part of maximising research investment and leveraging your research efforts. RDM includes (but is not limited to):

  • data retention
  • accessibility
  • storage
  • security

Practices and guidelines

By adopting good RDM practices you ensure:

  • Security of your research data
  • Greater ease in data sharing and thus increasing outputs/use of data/research impact
  • Less risk in loss of key information following staff changes
  • Compliance with research funding bodies regulations

Good RDM practices

  • Considering standardised naming conventions and structures for folders and files
  • Managing access to the data
  • Completing regular, secure backups of data files
  • Assigning descriptive information about the data (metadata) so that it can be found and interpreted
  • Managing data in accordance with ethical obligations, including privacy, confidentiality, and cultural sensitivities
  • Meeting any legal obligations related to intellectual property, licensing agreements, copyright, etc.
  • Making the data available to others on completion of the project

RDM Policy

RDM is a recommendation of the Australian Code for Responsible Conduct of Research. It is also required by many funding bodies, who also require RDM to be specifically addressed in the applications.

To ensure Charles Sturt University researchers follow good RDM practice, Charles Sturt has established an RDM policy. This policy requires all active research projects (whether funded externally or not) to have a RDM Plan.

RDM Training

All researchers and HDR students will be expected to undertake RDM training and assessment. This training is available for staff as an ELMO module.

Graduate research candidates can also access the module.

Creating your RDM Plan

Please note: CloudStor has been decommissioned and should not be used as a storage location option when submitting a Research Data Management Plan. We are working on removing the option in the online form. Advice from DIT is that OneDrive presents a similar and suitable option for data storage in most cases.

A RDM plan provides an opportunity to think about and plan how your research data will be managed throughout the its lifecycle. It also helps your think about what will happen to the data after the research is completed.

When you should complete the plan

  • When you are addressing ethics requirements for your project
  • When you are requesting space for storage and backup of the data
  • When you are applying for a grant
  • When you are completing your HDR proposal (from 2017 a RDM Plan is a mandatory requirement for the proposal)

RDM template

A simple straightforward template has been created to help researchers develop a RDM plan. The RDM plan template also contains advice on data storage options as well as where to get help.

Open the template

Where to get help

Contact researchsupport@csu.edu.au or your HDR supervisor if you have any questions about this.