Data management
The projects of ELASTO-Q-MAT are generating a large amount of experimental (raw and processed) and numerical simulations data. Furthermore numerous software and tools are developed. Following the guidelines by the DFG [1,2], all data generated are reliably and systematically preserved.
To go beyond, applying the FAIR data principles [3,4] suitable data should be submitted to appropriate data repositories. Complementing these data with the necessary metadata requires early considerations in the data live cycle. The data manager is assististing in the according planning especially to prevent isolated solutions.
Research Data
This CRC/TRR incorporates participants from different scientific communities with their own specific data workflows and formats. Providing individual solutions while retaining an overarching universal approach is a challenging task:
Different institutions with their own distinct infrastructure suggest a decentralized solution to data preservation. The key infrastructure for long-term storage on dedicated archive servers is provided by the coordination of the data centers at the participating universities and institutions: The Hochschulrechenzentrum (HRZ) at GU, the Zentrum für Datenverarbeitung (ZDV) at JGU, and the Steinbuch Center for Computing (SCC) at KIT:
If possible data should be published with a permanent address (DOI). For this these institutions also provide an institutional data repository: in addition also the general purpose open repository Zenodo at CERN is available for everyone.
In contrast to these general purpose repositories, discipline specific repositiories
as can be found via re3data.org offer enhanced functionality.
Here NOMAD (Novel Materials Discovery) is essential for the
data generated within the CRC:
Active development, driven by
FAIRmat, a consortium of the NFDI,
is expanding the supported methodologies. Recent progress will soon allow to provide
simulation data acquired in the CRC to the large NOMAD database.
Data sharing within the TRR 288 is fascilitated by existing installations of seafile and nextcloud at the institutions.
Source Code
Programs and tools developed in the projects are valuable resources not only for the other members of the TRR 288. In case of numerical simulations they are a necessary ingredient to reproduce the results. To ensure reproducibility the use of a version control system is crucial. Installations of the software development platform Gitlab at the institutions do not only provide version control but also allow for easy exchange and collaboration.
For software developments of general interest we recommend using the platform Github to create open source projects.