Towards a standardized research data management

In recent years, concepts, tools and services have been developed that enable good research data management. However, in most disciplines there are not yet any established standards. See how we want to solve this issue for the community.

In recent years, concepts, tools and services have been developed that enable good research data management. However, these are not yet established in the various disciplines and adoption and usage may differ between disciplines. Therefore, in NFDI4Ing, members located at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) are working on a suitable platform that will make it possible to provide quasi-standards for the community from the community. The idea is inspired by the concept for “request for comments” (RFC) of the Internet Engineering Task Force. This platform should enable peer-reviewed and community-agreed proposals, i.e. RFCs, to be published in a citable central location. In addition to the engineering community, this concept is also of interest to other research communities. Therefore, regular exchange meetings take place with the NFDI e.V., where it is discussed how the RFC platform can be set up for the entire NFDI.

Illustration of benefits of RFCs

Features that should be associated with the RFCs are:

  • centrally published and easily accessible

  • free and open

  • quickly publishable

  • commentable & evolving

  • adaptable in many ways

The work on RFCs for research data management is in full swing and first proposals for the implementation are already elaborated. Everyone who is interested in this topic is welcome to participate. If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact Dr. Ing Michael Selzer  and Dr. David Hecker.

M. Selzer