Research Data MANTRA is a free, online course with guidelines on how to manage the data you collect throughout your research. The course is particularly appropriate for those who work or are planning to work with digital data.



Once you have finalized the course, you will:

• Be aware of the risk of data loss and data protection requirements.
• Know how to store and transport your data safely and securely (backup and encryption).
• Have experience in using data in software packages such as R, SPSS, NVivo, or ArcGIS.
• Recognise the importance of good research data management practice in your own context.
• Be able to devise a research data management plan and apply it throughout the projects life.
• Be able to organise and document your data efficiently during the course of your project.
• Understand the benefits of sharing data and how to do it legally and ethically.

MANTRA set-up

The course contains the following eight units of approximately an hour:

• Research data explained
• Data Management plans
• Organizing data
• File formats and transformations
• Documentation & metadata
• Storage & security
• Data protection, rights & access
• Sharing, preservation & licensing

And four software practicals: R, SPSS, NVivo, and ArcGIS.

The units contain explanations, descriptions, examples, exercises, and video clips in which academics, PhD students and others talk about the challenges of managing research data.



MANTRA is maintained by Data Library staff in Information Services, University of Edinburgh.