Effective Research Data Management for Biodiversity and Environmental Research: A Self-Paced Online Course by NFDI4Biodiversity

In NFDI4Biodiversity, we have developed a self-paced online course on Research Data Management (RDM) for biodiversity and environmental research. The course is available as an Open Educational Resource (OER) in English and is openly available as a LiaScript course [1], an Ilias course [2], and in a text version [3]. Our target audience are researchers, PhD students as well as Bachelor and Master students, i.e. anyone interested in basics of RDM. Depending on prior knowledge and interest, we offer many options for further reading. The course was developed in a cooperative manner and is based on a generic RDM course developed by the Hessian federal state initiative for research data infrastructures (HeFDI) [4]. We focused on discipline-specific aspects of RDM, as the generic topics are already covered by the HeFDI course. Our goal was not only to convey good RDM content, but also to make the course, i.e. the training material, itself as FAIR as possible: the implementation as a LiaScript course facilitates the maintenance and further development of the course, the cooperation within our consortium with over 50 partner institutions, the collection and implementation of feedback from our consortium and beyond, as well as reuse. The LiaScript version can be exported as a SCORM-file for a large number of Learning Management Systems (LMS) [5] such as Ilias or Moodle (e.g. [6]). The course is designed to give an overview of RDM for biodiversity and environmental science, as well as deep dives into selected topics. Learners that are interested in even more details on a specific topic are guided to useful resources outside the course. The chapters are structured after the Data Life Cycle (DLC) and can be used individually, too. This allows for the straightforward integration of additional chapters, e.g. on Open Science (available soon). We are looking forward to share and improve this course, and to develop new courses with interested partners. Possible topics could be a RDM course adapted for Citizen Science projects, AI & ecology, a course on legal aspects in biodiversity research, and many more. Please contact us if you are interested in a collaboration!