Story written by: Quercus Florence Hamlin

In a world of ever-growing data and computing resources, understanding and practicing good data management strategies is critical to scientists of all kinds.

In order facilitate better data management strategies, EMPOWER students attended a workshop led by CUAHSI’s (The Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science) Liza Brazil. Brazil walked through basics of the data life cycle and metadata before doing an in-depth demo of CUAHSI’s data repository Hydroshare (https://www.hydroshare.org/). Hydroshare allows hydrologists to store and discover hydrologic data of all kinds by browsing spatially and with tags. Faculty in the workshop were excited to find Hydroshare had a private lab data sharing feature and created groups for their labs on the spot.

After Brazil’s presentations, EMPOWER students hosted a discussion on data management. During the discussion, students analyzed their current data life cycle and, after being presented with new ideas, were asked how they would improve it. Many ideas were considered, like working as labs to establish group practices and expectations but perhaps the best advice? Just do it. We have the tools: we just need to commit to data management.