Data retention periods: Data retention laws govern how business and education facilities store, protect and manage data. They ensure that data inaccessible for audits, investigations or regulatory requirements. They also protect sensitive information from breaches or unauthorised access, and enable transparency and accountability. In Queensland we follow the government University retention and disposal schedule.
DOI: A Digital Object Identifier is a string of numbers, letters and symbols used to permanently identify an article or document and link to it on the web. They are a source locator for online content.
Electronic Lab Notebooks: An electronic lab notebook is a computer program that takes the place of traditional paper lab notebooks. Lab notebooks are tools used by scientists, engineers, and technicians to keep track of their research, experiments, and the steps they follow in the lab.
Non-proprietary or open formats: an open or free format is a file format that is published and free to be used by everybody. Think CSV instead of Excel.
ORCiD: ORCID is a free, unique, persistent identifier (PID) for individuals to use as they engage in research, scholarship, and innovation activities.
PID: A Persistent Unique Identifier (PID) is a string of letters and numbers used to distinguish between and locate different objects, people, or concepts. A well-known example of a PID is a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) which is used to locate specific digital objects, frequently a journal article. Additional examples are ORCiD, a PID for researchers, and ROR, a PID for research organisations.
Proprietary formats: A proprietary file format is a file format of a company, organisation, or individual that contains data that is ordered and stored according to a particular encoding-scheme, such that the decoding and interpretation of this stored data is easily accomplished only with particular software or hardware that the company itself has developed.
RAID: A persistent identifier and global registry for identifying, tracking, and sharing research projects.
Readme files: A common way to document the contents and structure of a folder and/or a dataset so that a researcher can locate the information they need. Data documentation can be maintained in a variety of forms.
Research Data Management Plan: details how data will be collected, processed, analysed, described, preserved, and shared during the course of a research project. They are a living document, meaning changes can be made when needed.
ROR: A global, community-led registry of open persistent identifiers for research organisations.
Types of data