Research traditions and emerging expectations: PhD students and their research data management

Abstract

Research data management has become an important topic for research institutions around the world. More and more funders demand transparent research as well as data management plans. In accordance, universities start implementing data policies to further proper data handling. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin wanted to shed light on doctoral candidates’ current research data management. Therefore a short survey was conducted in 2015 with 187 participants. Results show that a majority of the respondents uses digital research data for their dissertations. Of those doctoral candidates only a minority has a concept for archiving their research data. Even though preservation is unclear, many PhD students with digital data plan to make it open. In compliance with these results a subsequent workshop for doctoral candidates was organized. Especially PhD students from the humanities expressed difficulties to name their produced or analyzed research data. They also mentioned legal concerns more often than other doctoral candidates. Students from the sciences had a better understanding of research data management. Reservations against data sharing were rare among them.