Welcome to the News Digest – RDM in Natural Science. Each week, I explore the latest developments in research data management, focusing specifically on natural sciences, and provide a concise overview. So, let us dive right in.

DAPHNE4NFDI

All software in one place

There is a new website showing all software that is/was developed (or co-developed) for photon and neutron experiments in DAPHNE4NFDI. Need a tool to process serial crystallography? CrystFEL! Want to generate automatic overviews of experiments? DAMNIT! Have to analyse X-ray diffraction data with Python? pydidas! And there are more tools that can support you in structured data analysis and capturing. Share it with your colleagues. Or if you are working as RDM professional, maybe something for the next workshop with your photon and neutron scientist.

Link to the DAPHNE4NFDI news page
Link to the software overview at helmholtz.software

NFDI4Chem

What’s new with Chemotion ELN v3.0.0?

In the past, I already mentioned that version v3.0.0 of Chemotion ELN was published, and now you can read more about the changes on the NFDI4Chem webpage. And well, and it is definitely worth checking out. Need a small teaser? Well, you can now handle mixtures of samples as well as macromolecules in a much better way, since they are now added as their own sample categories. Furthermore, simultaneous display of multiple spectra (e.g. for NMR) is now possible, there are some general changes to the overall UI and much, much more. If you are still using an older Chemotion ELN version, you might want to consider updating. I am hyped for the new version and looking forward to discovering all the new features and changes.

Link to the article at the NFDI4Chem webpage

NFDI4Earth

Long-Term preservation in repositories

Tim Schürmann and Peter Valena published the report “Guidelines for Repository Providers – Improving Long-Term Preservation of Digital Research Data” in Zenodo. I highlight this for, of course, repository providers but also RDM professionals that maybe need a refresher on terms like Bitstream Preservation vs Content Preservation,  the TRUST Principles for Repositories and in general Long-Term Preservation. I think everyone working in RDM can get something useful out of the 41 pages, so check it out.

Link to report in Zenodo with DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18862743

PSDI

Unlock data in trapped documents like patents and paper notebooks

This is really a highlight for your chemistry people: making data from paper lab notebooks digitally available. Two years ago was the first time I heard about DataRevival a software that can digitalise your paper lab notebooks (and other notes), at the time it was a local project and not available as a service. Which has now changed, now you can access the DataRevival yourself and I think it offers so many possibilities. I highly recommend having a look and sharing the presentation by Samuel Munday. Below I linked it to the live demonstration part of the presentation, but all the other information on how it works is also great, so if you have the time, check out the full recording.

Link to article at PSDI webpage
Link to presentation in Zenodo with DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18940762

Software

NFDI4Cat & NFDI4Chem

nfdi-de/dcat-ap-plus: Release 0.1.0rc4
Link to release notes in GitHub
Link to the software in Zenodo with DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18921353

The FAIR Elephant

Next week (March 23. – March 27.) the online congress “WISSENSCHAFTLICH ARBEITEN” (online in German) starts. It is a full week of great presentation by wonderful colleagues, helping you to make the most out of your scientific work. From writing your thesis to qualitative data analysis, from AI prompts to data management. It is free of charge and I think there is something for everybody (provided you understand German^^). On March 26. I will provide an input on data organisation. Check out the full program below:

Link to the program of the online congress “WISSENSCHAFTLICH ARBEITEN”

Outro

That is it for today. Thanks for reading, and see you next week.

Benjamin

If you find these weekly overviews useful, please like, and share them with your colleagues and if you want to support me even more, you can go over to my ko-fi page and buy a bag of peanuts for The FAIR Elephant. Your support is much appreciated.