DataWiz - An Automated Assistant for the Management of Psychological Research Data

Data sharing is not very common in psychology. Although an archive for psychological research data has been available for the past 10 years, it was not sufficient to change the situation. Some of the reasons may be the qualm of disclosing research that was gained through much work; the lack of knowledge how to manage research data; and the concern of high costs without gains. Years of experience with PsychData have shown that data management is most effective when it is instated early, preferably concomitant with the research process. The project DataWiz is meant to bridge this knowledge gap and minimize the effort required by pursuing the following strategic goals: (1) establishing domain-adequate research data management in psychology and (2) storing the research data sustainably (3) providing incentives to share the data. The DataWiz assistance system is an expert system which provides the knowledge base and procedural support for data sharing simultaneously. It can be implemented in place or used as software as a service (SaaS) via central ZPID servers to eliminate local operating costs. Furthermore, the data can be stored locally or in a cloud, with access management at the discretion of the owner. This procedure will meet the needs of researchers who have voiced concerns about losing their discretionary power over their own data. The standardized formats and interfaces nevertheless allow and encourage the transfer of research data to an established data archive. There are additional benefits, such as the facilitation of study registration and compliance with publishers' or editors' requirements. Last but not least, DataWiz will show that data sharing can be proliferated with the help of an assistance system, which could eventually be adapted for use in other disciplines. German Research Foundation (DFG) unknown unknown