RDM Glossary
Last modified by RDM Test on 2024/02/09 12:11
For further clarification on RDM terms, see the glossary of the Faculty Data Protocol, or contact your institute's data steward.
CARE Principles | A set of guiding principles for indigenous data governance, advocating that data should serve a Collective benefit; that the Authority to control the data remains with indigenous communities; the researchers recognise their Responsibility towards indigenous communities; that Ethics imbues the CARE principles, striving for minimal harm and maximal benefit. |
Citizen Science | According to the European Citizen Science Association, "Citizen Science is a flexible concept which can be adapted and applied within diverse situations and disciplines." The association has developed a set of 10 principles that underlie good practices in Citizen Science that can be found on here. |
Data Archiving/ Preservation | The storage of research data once research has been conducted, regardless of whether it was published. The FSW prefers the term ‘preservation’ to ‘archiving’ as it reflects a broader concept including both limited-time preservation for data falling under the WMO or GDPR umbrella or longer-term data archiving. |
Data Management Plans | Documents that “describe the data that is used and produced during the course of research activities, where the data will be archived, which licenses and constraints apply, and to whom credit should be given” (Miksa et al., 2019). |
Data Publication | The action of publishing research data either in a repository or in a journal dedicated to publishing data (or software). Data publication can be implemented with varying strictness of conditions depending on the license chosen and on access conditions. |
Data Repositories | A database infrastructure where researchers can deposit research data. Researchers are encouraged to preserve their datasets in repositories that are trusted, relevant for their communities and that fulfil the legal requirements in case they apply. |
Data Sharing | Sharing research data with third parties (public, private and/or private non-governmental entities). A clear agreement is needed on how data will be collected, processed, accessed, used, and stored, as well as on copyrights and rights of use. For sharing personal data, contact the privacy officer to draft a data sharing agreement. |
Data/Software Citation | It is important to make software citable whether it is Open Source or not. Ideally an example of the citation format can be added to the software metadata or in a separate file dedicated to citation. A suggested format is for example “Developer, A. A., Developer, B. B., & Developer, C. C. (yyyy). Title of the software: Subtitle [Computer software]. Archive Name. Retrieved Month dd, yyyy, or version date and version number from https://URL” |
Data Storage | Refers to the storage of data during ongoing research. Preferred data storage options might be discipline-specific and should consider the size and sensitivity of the data being stored. University storage solutions, such as J:/ drive, are preferable. |
Embargo Period | A period of restricted access to a manuscript and/or underlying data. During an embargo period, only the description of the dataset is published, while the data themselves are closed. |
FAIR Principles | A set of guiding principles for data management, aiming to increase the ‘openness’ of research data and software. These principles were acronymised to advocate that data should be as Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable as possible. For sensitive data, sharing rich metadata ensures some level of FAIRness. |
Licensing | Through licensing their work, researchers delineate permissions for the ownership and reuse of their data. The most common licenses are Creative Commons, which offer varying degrees of reuse and redistribution of data depending on researcher preferences. |
Metadata | All data necessary to understand the research output, by humans and machines. This can include descriptive information such as the project title, creator(s), the subject, language, licensing, etc. Pre-existing metadata standards can be used (e.g. DublinCore) and are usually saved as a 'readme file'. |
Open Access | A movement that strives for research to be free to read and use by anyone with internet access, necessitating the removal of price and permission constraints. This can be done either by publishing Open Access, or publishing under subscription and then making the publication OA after an embargo period. |
Open Science | A movement that proposes a change in the way science is practiced, encompassing guidelines for all stages of the research cycle that should ultimately result in high-quality, accessible, transparent and cooperative research. |
Open Source Software | Software released under a license which makes it available for anyone to use, distribute and modify. |
Persistent Identifiers | Long-lasting references to a digital resource. They reliably point to and unambiguously and uniquely identify a digital entity (Cruz, Maria, & Tatum, Clifford. (2021). NWO Persistent Identifier Strategy (Version 2). |
Personally Identifiable Data / Sensitive Data | Personal data as defined by GDPR involves any information that can be traced back to a specific person (whether or not in combination with other data). Sensitive data such as a person's race, religion or health are called special category data. They have been awarded extra protection by the legislator. |
Pre-registration | The act of registering a research plan before the project is conducted, which when done in an open access repository will generate a DOI that can then be referred to in the final publication. Such plan could include preliminary hypotheses and research design. |
Publication Packages | A specification for the preservation of all research material in relation to a publication, aiming to ensure the transparency of the research leading to a publication. The documents included in the publication package vary depending on the research tradition and methods used. |
Registered Report | This document contains an introduction, hypothesis and methodology, which is then submitted as a Stage 1 manuscript for peer review. After the completion of the manuscript, it is sent for Stage 2 review which will determine how closely the research design in Stage 1 was followed. |
Research Integrity/Responsible Research | As defined by the Netherlands Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, research integrity is based on five guiding principles: Honesty, Scrupulousness, Transparency, Independence and Responsibility (Netherlands Code of Conduct for Research Integrity 2018) |
Software Management Plans | Documents that describe ‘how a specific software project will be developed, maintained and curated' (NWO, 2022). This encourages researchers to think about how to make software as reusable and accessible as possible. |