Why worry about data management?
Ten reasons why you should invest time in data management:
- It’ll make your grant applications more competitive. ($$)
- It’ll increase the likelihood that your papers will be cited by others in your field (credit/impact)
- You’ll forget it if you don’t document it. Your future self will thank you. (effort)
- You’ll be able to build more complex datasets. (academic rigor)
- It’ll increase the likelihood that you’ll be able to recruit talented students/postdocs for your research projects (academic legacy)
- It increases the likelihood that your research can be verified/reproduced externally (academic rigor/credit)
- If it was worth collecting, isn’t it worth sharing with others in your field? (advancing research)
- Your students will thank you. (effort)
- You’ll get more efficient at it with practice. (effort)
- You can publish data papers based on your data. (credit/impact)