Welcome to the latest News Digest! Each week, I explore the latest developments in research data management, focusing specifically on natural sciences, and provide a concise overview. This week is packed with lots of exciting news, so let’s dive right in!

Version 5.2.0

With version 5.2.0 a bunch of new features are added to the electronic lab notebook eLabFTW and many of them are particularly interesting for people working in chemistry or chemistry related fields. Here are some examples: the possibility for a chemical compound database was added, with Ketcher 2 an improved chemical structure editor is added as well as an inventory management and the possibility to import data from PubChem with CAS or CID. There are more new features as well as fixes and changes, so check out the change log on GitHub and go to the official demo version to see the new features in action.

Link to changelog on GitHub

Link to official eLabFTW demo

Report: Consortium meeting

You can find the report of the final NFDI4Cat consortium meeting (of the current funding phase) on the webpage of NFDI4Cat. The overview is well-structured with links to a lot of the resources from the meeting. As a side note, NFDI4Cat seems to have moved a little bit away from Zenodo and is publishing all materials (at least from this event) now on Repo4Cat. So, if you are looking for new uploads, make sure to check it out. I will not include all the links to the resources here again, since it is all in the report, but I highly recommend you check them out right now.

Link to report on webpage of NFDI4Cat

Recording published: The role of Data Stewards in the adoption of FAIR and ELNs

In the latest recording of the NFDI4Chem Stammtisch, Dr. Esther Plomp is talking about her experience as a data steward and how you can be successful with adapting the FAIR principles as well as electronic lab notebooks. The talk is not specific to chemistry, and I highly recommend it to all the data professionals out there. In the talk a paper with the title: Ten simple rules for starting FAIR discussions in your community, which I find quite useful, you can find the link bellow.

Link to the recording on YouTube

Link to the paper with DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1011668

New webpage: easier access to resources

PSDI worked on the webpage and offer now an easier access to all the resources they are providing, and there are many services and tools. A Data Conversion Service, a Data Search in 34 different data sources, a learning materials collection (Skills4Scientists) to only name a few. In the future, they will provide additional information on the different services on their mailing list, so I recommend to sign up now. Here I want to highlight the PSDI Knowledge Base, where they provide general information about research data management and much more.

Link to the new webpage of PSDI

Link to the PSDI Knowledge Base

Discover EXPLORE: Dive into particle physics

Now, there is fantastic news from PUNCH4NFDI. You can now access real data from CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, and you don’t need programming skills to do it. With EXPLORE the technical barriers are minimized and “learning and discovery comes first”. Check out the article for more information and definitely follow the link provided.

Link to report on the webpage of PUNCH4NFDI

That is it for today, I think the last week was truly exciting and a bunch a new cool resources as well as information was published. I hope you took something useful from today’s News Digest, and I will see you next week!

Benjamin