When we are talking about research data management, we are talking about many different topics: data organisation, data storage, legal aspects and requirements, data management plans (DMPs), electronic lab notebooks (ELNs), data policies, metadata schemas, controlled vocabularies, ontologies to only name a few. For people that are new to RDM and want to start to improve their handling of research data, this can be overwhelming. In the preparation for one of my latest talks, I wanted to find a symbol/metaphor/picture that makes the communication about this topic easier and more understandable for researchers. I think I found something that works, so I wanted to share it with you all.

Mountains as Challenges

Each researcher, research group, start-up or company has to overcome different challenges, and you can think of these challenges as mountains to climb or canyons to overcome. Some are easier, some are harder, and some are nearly impossible to overcome without help. These challenges could be that there are new people joining a research group (or some are leaving), communication with new collaboration partners, data loss due to natural disasters (fires, flooding) or human errors, new challenging topics like AI or the next data publications for an article.

There is one thing that can help you to overcome these mountains (challenges) faster or even enable you to overcome them at all, and this is a rope. Yes, a simple rope. I think we can all agree that climbing is easier with a rope. So why do I think it is a good symbol for an RDM strategy?

The Rope

Let us take a closer look at a rope. A rope consists of multiple strings (or yarns, but we will stay with strings). So if we say the rope represents our RDM strategy, then the strings represent the different topics in this strategy, e.g. data organisation, data storage and so. The RDM strategy is built from these different topics, just like a rope is built from different strings. The rope now has the advantage, that we can begin with only one string (e.g. data documentation), but we can add more strings later on (e.g. data storage, DMPs), to make the rope more robust, to help us with bigger challenges, like crossing a canyon. We can not only add new strings, we can also add maybe a steel core (e.g. an ELN?) or a protective layer  (e.g. automatic checks?). Furthermore, we can always work on the rope, we can add new strings, remove or improve strings that are already there. With the simple picture of a rope, it is easier to show, that RDM can get very complex but is flexible, and you can start simple: with just one string.

There is another thing about a rope why I like it as a symbol: It explains the role that RDM professionals (whatever we want to call them) take quite good.

Not only is a rope made of strings, but strings are made of fibres. Let us look at one example: There is the string data documentation, as I established before. So what are now the fibres of this string? Well, it is everything in this field. So the fibres of the string data documentation are: naming conventions, folder structures, (domain-specific) standards and much more. For the string data storage the fibres are: back-up strategies, data volume, file formats, access management and so on. And the role of the RDM professional is now to know the fibres, select the important ones for the researcher and provide them with the expert knowledge of the field. Together, the researchers and the RDM professional then built the strings and the rope. Furthermore, the RDM professional checks the rope, whether it is still as strong as it should be or if there are some flaws.

The rope as a symbol for an RDM strategy is flexible enough to start easy, but also allows integrating more complex aspects of research data management.

I hope I was able to explain the idea of thinking of an RDM strategy as a rope and how it simplifies RDM strategies for others to understand how to start, how to improve and what the role of RDM professionals can be.

What do you think? Does this symbol work? Do you see problems with using the rope? Or are there some similar ideas already out there? Please let me know in the comments, and/or contact me: thefairelephant@posteo.de.

If you like it, feel free to use it 🙂 .

Benjamin