Raw data are the valuable resources of research projects. When they are mined, processed and refined, true treasures can be unearthed. Research data management practices and tools help you to make your data findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. The long journey from the earth to the light was highlighted on the 3rd Research Data Day in NRW on November 14, 2023.

Under the motto "Promoting and Refining data: Bring your data treasures to light", the state initiative for research data management - fdm.nrw hosted an NRW-wide virtual morning program with exciting presentations.

In the afternoon, researchers and other interested parties were given a comprehensive insight into RDM at UDE as well as the opportunity to exchange ideas at the Gerhard-Mercator-Haus in Duisburg.

Afternoon programme

Collect - Process - Store: How research data becomes even more valuable - Practical examples

Welcome: Prof. Dr. Pedro José Marrón (Vice-Rector for Transfer, Innovation & Digitalisation)

Keynote: Prof. Dr. Michael Goedicke: FAIR research software - the NFDIxCS consortium

Lectures:

•     Prof. Dr. Johannes Köster: Transparency, reproducibility, and adaptability - towards sustainable data analysis
•     Yamen Zantah: eLabFTW: A comprehensive solution for efficient research lab management?
•     Dr. Karin Kolb: Go digital. Processes of providing a scientific legacy in the research data repository RADAR

"Glück auf!" with the RDS - posters, information stands and get-togethera centred around RDM at UDE

At numerous information stands, visitors had the opportunity to learn more about individual tools and services offered by the RDS - from storage and archiving options to the training courses offered in the RDM curriculum.

DMP Boot Camp: Advice and hands-on workshop on data management plans

The RDS data stewards answered questions about creating data management plans.

The 2^nd Research Data Day in NRW took place on November 15, 2022 under the motto "Lighthouse RDM: Orientation in the sea of data".

At the joint NRW-wide, virtual morning programme, organised by the State Initiative for Research Data Management - fdm.nrw, around 165 participants attended presentations by Dr. Jens Dierkes and Dr. Eva Seidlmayer on the DataStew project, by Prof. Dr. Sandra Geisler and Soo-Yon Kim on the Cluster of Excellence Internet of Production and by Prof. Dr. Christoph Held on the Cluster of Excellence RESOLV.

In addition, the RDS held an afternoon programme for researchers and interested parties in the library hall in Essen.

Afternoon programme

RDM beacon and cruise with the RDS

With around 35 participants, the RDS programme kicked off in the afternoon in the library hall on the Essen campus with a welcome address by Nicole Walger (Director of the University Library).

Prof. Dr. Michael Goedicke then presented the NFDI project NFDIxCS. Congratulations to him and his team on the funding of the project!

Focusing on possible solutions for anonymising video data, Prof. Dr. Karola Pitsch explained RDM measures in the MuMoCorp project.

Dr. Yaser Alashloo gave insights into the RDM in the CRC Marie and in particular about the use of Dataverse as a repository solution.

Manan Shah spoke about the use of the electronic lab notebook eLabFTW in the CRC RESIST.

Dr. Johannes Koch gave an impressive demonstration of the possibilities offered by the Omero software in CRC 1430 for processing and disseminating microscopy data.

Following the short presentations, participants had the opportunity to share experiences and gain new insights at numerous information tables on individual tools and services offered by the RDS - from data management plans, storage and archiving options to the training courses offeredin the RDM curriculum.

Under the motto "Whoever keeps order has time for research: Roadmaps for research data", the 1^st Research Data Day in NRW was held on 16 November 2021.

Dr. Stefan Drees from the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia (MKW) and Dr. Stephanie Rehwald from the state initiative fdm.nrw opened the virtuel morning programme, which was organised for all universities in NRW by the state initiative for research data management - fdm.nrw. Prof. Dr. Philipp Cimiano (Computer Science, Bielefeld University), Prof. Dr. Andreas Blätte (Political Science, University of Duisburg-Essen), Prof. Dr. Sonja Herres-Pawlis (Chemistry, RWTH Aachen University) and Prof. Dr. Andreas Wytzisk-Arens (Geo-Informatics / Computer Science, Bochum University of Applied Sciences) then reported on their strategies for good research data management (RDM).

In the afternoon, two consecutive workshops were offered online at the UDE.

Afternoon programme

Workshop 1: Why should I reuse data and how do I find suitable data? Why should I make my own data reusable and what is necessary to produce reusable and reproducible research data? These questions and how they are related to saving time and gaining visibility were addressed in the workshop.

Lecturer: Dr. Sophia Leimer

Workshop 2: Smart paths on the data roadmap - organisation and reproducibility

If you want to reproduce research results, you need - in addition to the data itself - further information: how was it processed and how was it visualised? And: how do data storage and analysis workflows need to be organised in order to make them reproducible for others? Using the example of a Snakemake workflow, this workshop looked at the most important aspects of reusable data analysis.

Lecturer: Henning Timm