Research Data Management
Research data management ensures data is well-organized, accessible, and properly shared, enhancing collaboration, promoting transparency, and maximizing the impact and reuse of research for societal benefit.
UNESCO advocates for making research data freely available to the public, which allows anyone to access, use, and share it, fostering innovation. Similarly, South Africa's National Open Science Policy (draft) encourages the sharing of publicly funded research outputs and data across all societal levels, broadening access to knowledge. The NRF Open Access Statement released in 2015 requires the results of NRF-funded research (research outputs and the supporting data) to be made available in accredited open access repositories, publications, and platforms with the provision of a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for future citation and referencing. Initiatives like the National Science and Technology Forum's (NSTF) Data for Research Award highlight the public value of open data, particularly datasets of national interest. This award recognizes individuals or teams who have significantly advanced the availability, management, and reuse of research data, thereby enhancing scientific progress and societal benefit.
The North-West University (NWU), through its Research Data Management (RDM) policy, further supports this process by ensuring that research data is systematically organized and shared via repositories such as the NWU-Research Data Repository (NWU-RDR) or DaYta Ya Rona, facilitating Open Access use. Research data management planning tools such as DMPTool are vital for creating effective data management plans, supporting researchers in adhering to these requirements, and ensuring proper organization, storage, and sharing of data throughout the research process.
Training Material