Public health research is dependent upon the availability of good quality datasets. However, locating this data remains a challenge. On July 30th 2014, the London School held a workshop to explore how research data can be made easier to identify, locate, access and use. The event tied in with the publication of a Wellcome Trust funded study that investigated current approaches to resource discovery in public health and epidemiology and outlined several approaches that may be taken by research funders to invest in good practice. This study was led by Dr Tito Castillo, Director of the NIHR BioResource at the University of Cambridge, with partners from the Farr Institute at University College London, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the UK Data Service (University of Essex), the Open Data Foundation and Ubiquity Press. The final report and a summary can be found on the Wellcome Trust website. Read more

According to popular opinion, we’re now in the second half of 2014. This revelation has caused considerable upset for many people, who have grown attached to the months of January to June. These people can be found in popular coffee establishments, loudly complaining that time never passed this quickly when they were young and that there are only XXX shopping days until Christmas. We shun such people at the LSHTM RDM Service, celebrating the 1st half of the year by doing what we do best: drinking tea  analysing the RDM queries we’ve received during the past six months and identifying common areas where researchers need support.

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The announcement of the PLoS Data Policy has provoked considerable discussion on the role of data publication at LSHTM. This blog post provides an overview of the PLOS Data Policy and describes the support available to LSHTM researchers who need to comply with these requirements. A PDF version of this document is also available. Read more

I’m pleased to announce the launch of the new LSHTM Research Data Management website. The web site provides detailed guidance on a range of topics related to data management within the research lifecycle. These include:

Writing a Data Management Plan
Creating and organising data
Keeping data securely
Looking after…

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On November 14th 2013, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine ran a half day workshop that explored how data re-use can enhance a researcher’s academic impact and practical steps that can be taken to make data easy to analyse and use beyond the original project. Read more