Index

Hot research data

Hot data are accessed frequently and data must be available almost immediately for processing.
In specific terms, this means that the data is processed frequently and changes occur as a result. Hot data are ideally located close to the machine that processes them, so that delays do not occur over a network, for example.
Hot research data are not published and are rarely shared with other people. If the data are not easy to recover, the backup strategy must also include hot data.

Linked Open Data

Linked Open Data (LOD) is an approach to representing and publishing research data. It consists of two aspects:

  • “Linked”: related, machine-readable data on the Internet
  • “Open”: the data is freely accessible and distributable

This results in a network of data in which individual elements refer to others. Individual data can be retrieved via a URI.

A visual representation can be found here.

Long-term archiving

The standard retention period for research data is at least ten years [1]. This poses both organizational and technical challenges.
From an organizational point of view, it must be regulated who has responsibility and control over data when the original owner leaves FAU.
From a technical point of view, there is a need for specialized archiving systems and plans that prevent data loss. In addition, the file format is relevant, as it may no longer be supported at a later time.

[1]: https://forschungsdaten.info/praxis-kompakt/glossar/#c269839

openBis

openBis is an open source combination of electronic lab notebook (ELN), data management platform and laboratory inventory management system that has been actively developed since 2007. Depending on requirements, all or only selected features can be used. The modular design of openBIS enables flexible adaptation to the requirements of a wide variety of working groups. In addition, it has an interface that allows the use of Jupyter notebooks for data analysis in openBIS. There is also an interface for exporting data to the Zenodo repository.

Open access

“Open Access” means that digital scientific content is available free of charge and in an accessible form. The copyright remains in place.

Further information is available at forschungsdaten.info

Usage rights

A right of use describes the manner in which an object may be used. Examples of “uses” of digital objects are copying, saving or publishing. The use can be subject to conditions, such as a monetary fee.

A right of use between the rights holder and the contractual partner can be established through a license.

Labfolder

LabFolder is an electronic lab notebook, inventory management tool and the name of the company that offers the software which was founded in 2013.

As proprietary software, usage incurs monthly costs per user. A free version is also available, but with limited features and limited number of users per group.

Data can only be exported as XHTML and PDF. Labfolder licences can be purchased via the University’s clinic, for further details please visit the Labfolder website at the Medical Faculty.

Metadata

Metadata describe other data using information that is useful for interpreting and (automatically) processing the actual data, for example digital research data; they represent “data about data”.

Metadata can be elementary descriptions such as length, coding and type (number, string, date and time, currency amount, etc.). Much more important are metadata which help to categorize and characterize the properties of digital objects and provide further information that says something about their meaning. For measured values in research data, these are, for example: measuring device used or sensor used, accuracy or location of the measurement. Even the name of a data object says something about its meaning, but usually this is not enough. Often these terms are too short and too general (such as “measurement”). It’s only usually clear what this means in the context the data are used. In this way, research projects develop terms that can be misunderstood outside the project.

Ontologies are intended to relate such specific terms to a general system of terms.

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Backup

Say no to data loss and back up your data

WissKI

WissKI
WissKI is a virtual research environment that enables scientific, location-independent and collaborative work with linked data. On the basis of an ontology, the research data are semantically enriched and stored in the form of triples in a coherent data network (graph database).