Recent years have seen an increase in the number of funders requiring researchers to deposit copies of their research data in open repositories. This requires researchers to think carefully about their data and how useable they are to individuals who have not been involved in their collection. Even when they are not planning to make their data openly accessible, individual researchers need to make sure that they are understandable to and useable by collaborators, successors, and even themselves in three-to-five years’ time. Learning about personal data management practices in a laboratory course can help students to develop habits that will ease the transition to independent research and publication of data in an era of openness. This presentation describes a curriculum used in a physical chemistry laboratory class that teaches students basic data management principles, including the FAIR data principles; things to keep in mind when collecting the data themselves; file naming conventions; sound data organization practices; criteria for choosing file formats; and data annotation rationales and practices.

What’s in a (file) name? Introducing data management skills in an undergraduate laboratory course

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.