RDM achievements

 

Effective Research Data Management (RDM) plays a pivotal role within SFB/TRR219. It is supported by Kseniia Dukkart, Data Steward for SFB/TRR219, who is situated at RWTH Aachen University IT Center. Kseniia Dukkart serves as a central point of coordination of the SFB/TRR219 needs with the central services provided in cooperation with the IT Center and the University Library. Several central RDM activities have been implemented:

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• Research data management plans (DMPs) were established for every project. These DMPs help ensure the organization and preservation of research data throughout a project's lifecycle, reducing the risk of data loss or corruption. Additionally, they promote transparency and reproducibility by outlining data collection, analysis, and sharing procedures, facilitating peer review and future research. In the SFB/TRR219 we used the web-based tool RDMO (Research Data Management Organiser) to create DMPs for all projects. Kseniia Dukkart in collaboration with the University Library created a generic template that could later be adopted by other consortiums within a university clinic. This template takes into account the specific IT-infrastructure of researchers and institutions. The Data Steward supported researchers in writing DMPs, ensuring their accuracy and applicability.

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• An electronic lab notebook (eLN) called eLabJournal was established to replace the traditional pen and paper notekeeping. With the eLN, we use a browser-based tool that allows seamless operation in home office and in our research institutes and clinics. Several meetings were held on issues related to the use and management of eLN. They were attended by a wide range of researchers to improve their handling of the eLN. Notably, the eLN not only replaces all handwritten notes but additionally holds research data linked to the respective experiments. The eLN system allows documentation in a project rather than person-oriented manner, i.e., projects can be developed and documented by multiple scientists working together. The eLN is by used by (almost) all SFB/TRR219 projects based at RWTH Aachen University. We are aware that the operation of the eLN is limited to local service at RWTH Aachen University but external partners and members of SFB/TRR219 can be integrated as guests. The partner side at Saarland University is using a different type of electronic lab notebook keeping, but benefits from the SFB/TRR219-organized user meetings by exchanging best strategies of notebook organization. 

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• Support for data archiving within SFB/TRR219 was provided, ensuring that data generated within the project are securely stored for a minimum of ten years in suitable archives. For the archiving purposes Coscine platform was used. Coscine, short for Collaborative Scientific Integration Environment, is a platform of the IT Center RWTH Aachen and is designed to support efficient research data management (RDM). It serves as a versatile solution for archiving research data in compliance with good scientific practices, promoting collaboration among researchers, and ensuring data security.  In the Coscine platform, research data are linked with metadata that describes relevant aspects of the collected data sets from the researchers’ perspective. These metadata are collected using custom-made application profiles that adhere to the RDF-Standard (Resource Description Framework), promoting an open knowledge community and adherence to FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable). Within the Coscine project, we developed custom application profiles tailored to the specific needs of each project. For example, collaborating with service project S03 (Jankowski V, Jankowski J), we created three application profiles for mass spectrometry data. Additionally, for project M-05 (Noels/Marx), we developed an application profile for RNA Sequencing data. In addition, the service project S02 (Boor, Hohl) is continuing the imaging data platform as developed in the first funding period, providing high accessibility for all users in combination with safe data storage and archiving.

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• To expedite the data uploading process to the Coscine platform, a specialized script was created. This script not only enabled the standardization of diverse research data (e.g., of diverse mass spectrometry data) during archiving but also extracted essential metadata from metadata files. As a result, the profiles within Coscine are automatically populated by the script, eliminating the need for manual data entry by researchers.

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