Understanding and Characterizing Engineering Research Data for its Better Management

Engineering research data is diverse in character, spanning everything from material properties to questionnaire responses and interview transcripts. As a first step towards improving its management, a terminology is being developed to help describe the different types of engineering information and the different forms of development process and management activity to which it is subjected to during research. In particular the notions of ‘data purposing’, ‘data re-purposing’ and ‘supporting data re-use’ have been identified as data preparation activities which motivate research data management. This terminology has evolved in tandem with a scoping survey and audit of selected cases of engineering research data, and underlies a new modelling method for visualizing the associations between research data objects. These Research Activity Information Development (RAID) diagrams support both the initial researchers in managing the data and later re-users in understanding the data.