Project End & Offboarding
Think about the end at the beginning
The end-of-project data management strategy should be established early in the project planning process. Preparations should begin at least 3 to 6 months before project completion to ensure proper data organization, documentation, transfer, storage and publication. Larger or more complex projects may require over 6 months. The definition of “end of project” varies, especially for long-term or large-scale research, requiring ongoing data management and milestone-based planning. Code of conducts for scientific integrity require to properly manage research data at the end of a project. For the humanities, see the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences Code of Conduct for Scientific Integrity.
Guidelines and a checklist on how to manage digital research data at the end of a project
This document, provided by the RDM network, offers detailed guidelines on key aspects of RDM when concluding research projects, including a checklist to assist researchers in managing tasks and processes effectively. It also addresses the specific scenario of offboarding, where a researcher leaves a project or the university.
Further ressources and reading (non-exhaustive)
- The Endings Project, Canada, for Building Sustainable Digital Humanities projects
- Digital Longevity Project Basel (Humanities), Learnings from the (Digital) History project Stadt.Geschichte.Basel, Zenodo
- Digital Longevity Project basel (Humanities), Learnings from the (Digital) History project Stadt.Geschichte.Basel, Youtube
- Harvard University: Data Management Offboarding, includes guidelines, a checklist and a webinar
- Harvard University: RDM Knowledge Transfer File, where researchers should document essential information related to projects and datasets
- University of Oxford: Post-project data preservation
- University of Wisconsin Madison: Offboarding checklist with explanations and additional resources in tabular format
- Digital Preservation Handbook from the Digital Preservation Coalition