Frequently Asked Questions

All the answers to your questions in one page.

Data Management Plans

Where do I create a Data Management Plan (DMP)?

What is the purpose of a DMP?

Data Management Plans (DMPs) describe how data will be collected, stored, analyzed, preserved and shared throughout the active phase of the research project and beyond, identify planned outputs to publish such as articles and datasets, outline the roles and responsibilities of project collaborators, and consolidate all the completed outputs from a project to demonstrate impact. For more information see Data Management Plans

What are the advantages of registering a DMP with a Digital Object Identifier?

Finalizing a DMP and setting its visibility to either "Organizational" or "Public" allows users to generate a DMP ID which is a Digital Object Identifier. Doing so opens a "Follow-Up" tab where completed research outputs (e.g. articles, papers, presentations) can be manually added. It's a great way to keep track of all produced project outputs!

GitHub

What is GitHub?

GitHub is a cloud-based service that helps people store and manage code. While originally built for software development, it has been co-opted by data scientists as it offers excellent version control for both plain text data (.csv) files as well as code, allowing users to revert back to a previous version if needed. It's great for collaboration, as people can access the repository from anywhere and work on a project at the same time. A repository - a folder in which all files and their version histories are stored - can be set up within the Hakai Institute GitHub to store a data package (see Hosting data).

Should I use GitHub?

GitHub is a great platform to use if you're collaborating with others on a project, particularly if you're using code to clean up or analyze data. When working with tabular, text-based data packages, we strongly recommend these be hosted in a Hakai Institute GitHub repository. It is very useful if you're expecting to release annual versions for long-term monitoring data (see Versioning).

Data Services

What is OBIS?

OBIS is a global open-access data and information clearing-house on marine biodiversity for science, conservation and sustainable development Learn more here https://obis.org/about/.

For details see our OBIS page here

What is ERDDAP?

ERDDAP is a scientific data server that gives users a simple, consistent way to download subsets of gridded and tabular scientific datasets in common file formats and make graphs and maps. ERDDAP is a Free and Open Source data server initialy developed by NOAA NMFS SWFSC Environmental Research Division (ERD).

For more detail see our ERDDAP page here

Still have some questions

Use the search bar above or ask data@hakai.org, start an issue here or a discussion here.