Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies News

New Class: Introduction to Data Management, AGRY 598-049

November 7th, 2014

New Class: Introduction to Data Management, AGRY 598-049

Course Registration Info: “Intro To Data Management” – 17290 – AGRY 59800 – 049,  2 CR

Time: Monday, 2:30 to 4:30 PM

Prerequisites: Enrolled in graduate school and active in research

Instructors: Marianne Stowell Bracke, Associate Professor, Agricultural Sciences Information Specialist

Ronald Turco, Professor, Agronomy

Class Overview: Research in agriculture and related fields is increasingly driven by data.  But, students have not been trained in the most advanced approaches needed to fully utilize these evolving data resources.   Therefore, we are providing a graduate-level class that will allow students to the fully develop an understanding of and skills in, managing data.  In addition to mastering current conceptual approaches in managing, organizing, sharing and curating research data, students will actively participate in addressing real world challenges by developing and working with their own and other research data sets.   Students will benefit from receiving intense, hands-on training in managing data.   

Structure: Classes will meet once a week (Monday) for 2 hours.  Initial class sessions will focus on the nature of the data the students are generating, student responsibilities and actions in developing data sets, and the challenges.  Based in part on the themes that arise from these discussions instructors will then introduce a series of discussion topics and activities pertaining to data management or curation in ways that relate to the student’s own work.  Activities may include developing a data management plan to guide the development of a data set, tools for documenting and describing data well enough so that others could understand and make use of the data, or taking steps to prepare the data for eventual publication and long term preservation.  Each student will work through these issues using the actual data that they are generating in their labs with active consultation from the instructors.  Participating students will also have the advantage of having a student cohort to discuss particular challenges.  Note, this will not just be an academic discussion – students will be required to begin implementing these data management techniques into actual practice.

General Outline:  

1. Introduction to the Program
2. Data Management Planning
3. Data Lifecycle Models
4. Discovery & Acquisition
5. Description & Metadata
6. Data Security & Storage Issues / Description & Metadata (Part 2)
7. Issues in Copyright & Licensing Data
8. Description and Metadata (Part 3) / Mid-semester Check-in
9. Data Sharing / File Naming Conventions
10. Data Management & Documentation
11. Data Visualizations
12. Data Repositories
13. Data Preservation
14. Data Publication and Curation
15. Data Literacy Course Wrap-Up

Contact Information: M.S. Bracke, mbracke@purdue.edu; R.F. Turco, rturco@purdue.edu