Seminar upskills students in managing and analysing research data

By Tamanna Patel, External Liaison, SAEON Graduate Student Network Tweet

Students learn to manipulate data at the Data Lifecycle Training seminar for students

A two-day seminar for students on the research data lifecycle, hosted by SANParks Scientific Services, was held at the Cape Research Centre in February.

The engaging seminar was led by Dr Jasper Slingsby from the SAEON Fynbos Node. He worked through an example of the research data lifecycle as applied by the Fynbos Node in their publication Intensifying postfire weather and biological invasion drive species loss in a Mediterranean-type biodiversity hotspot.

The practical examples of how to manage data and analyse it in R was very useful to the students, who also had time to manipulate data and work through the examples in R by themselves.

Special thanks go to the SAEON uLwazi Node’s Dr Amelia Hilgart (data scientist), Dr Anne Treasure (data curator) and Leo Chiloane (curation lead) for their insightful presentations in each process of the data lifecycle. We would also like to thank Dr Lara Atkinson (Egagasini Node) for her valuable presentations on how to read and write scientific papers.

The research data lifecycle is a model devised to make research as usable and impactful as possible. It encompasses best practice aspects of study design, data collection, data management, data manipulation and publication of research data with the aim of promoting the FAIR data principles and maximising the collaborative potential of research generally.