Get the essentials about how to manage and share research data from this free introductory online course.

The Research Data Management and Sharing MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) covers:

Understanding research data – the diversity of data and managing it across the research lifecycle
Data management planning – the components of good data management plans
Working with data – good practices for data organisation, documentation, versioning, citation, storage and security
Sharing data – understanding confidentiality, data ownership and licensing
Archiving data – importance of archiving and how to assess repositories
The course materials are short, video-based lessons and peer assessments which you access online on the Coursera website. There is no formal qualification if you pass the course though you can pay a small charge to get a certificate of accomplishment.

It’s designed to last five weeks but you can proceed at your own pace if you don’t want to do the graded assessments for the certificate. There are specific dates for enrolment.

The course is run by the University of Edinburgh and the University of North Carolina.