In addition to the general onboarding assistance provided at the start of a professorship, you will find further information here about infrastructures, services, and advisory services for research data management.

Policy on Handling Research Data

Institutional research data management (RDM) is governed by the Policy on Handling Research Data and the open science policy , which is adopted by the Rectorate and the Senate as governing institutions of the University of Freiburg. Generally, the guidelines für safeguarding good research practice constitute the research practice.

Research Data Management – First Point of Contact

The first point of contact for institutional research data management is the Research Data Management Group (RDMG). It is subordinate to the Vice Rector for Research and Innovation and works closely with Freiburg Research Services (FRS) , the University Library (UB) , and the Data Center (RZ) . You can find more information about their services and support offerings on their respective websites. For actual research data management, we would like to point out the following offers to you.

Depending on the methodological orientation, you will need research infrastructures that can process and store large amounts of data. University-wide coordination is carried out by the Research Infrastructure Commission (FISK) , which includes the faculties, the rectorate, and central institutions. In addition, infrastructures for compute and storage are offered by the Data Center for various research projects. General needs can be used as basic provisions, and situation-specific operating models are possible for peak demands, which may have been prepared during appointment negotiations.

There is a university-wide discussion forum on the ILIAS further education platform. You can access this forum via the link https://www.rz.uni-freiburg.de/go/rdmg . On this forum, data stewards exchange ideas and information about developments aimed at recipients within the UFR (University of Freiburg) environment.

RDMG contact details

Email: rdm@mail.uni-freiburg.de
Phone: +49 761 203 4646
Web: https://rdmg.uni-freiburg.de
Forum: https://www.rz.uni-freiburg.de/go/rdmg Mastodon: @rdmg.freiburg.social

Unique Identification via ORCID ID

With the FDM policy and since January 2024 additionally the Open Science policy, the University strongly recommends all members, including newly appointed researchers, to use an ORCID ID for the attribution of publications of all kinds . Such an ID can be directly validated by specifying the University as the employer¹. Further information about ORCID can be found at https://orcid.org or https://freidok.uni-freiburg.de .

Establishment of Virtual Research Environments

In research data management – or in the context of Open Science as the field of Open Data – the ambition is to open up the research process, as long as it does not conflict with other goals such as economic exploitation or data protection. Technical preparations need to be made for implementation. The University of Freiburg offers services as a provider or as an intermediary to external partners with which a suitable research environment can be created. Among them are also standard services, which can be individually configured for such use as needed.

Storage Systems

Each member can integrate a home drive with a quota of 20 GB as personal storage. Only knowledge of the login data for myLogin and a connection to the university network are required for setup. This can be established from outside with a VPN connection .

For professorships or working groups, group drives can be requested . A basic requirement of 250 GB is provided free of charge by the university. Higher storage requirements can be set up for financial participation. Such a group drive can be integrated within the university network under a drive letter. It is intended as a supplement or even better, a replacement for self-procured storage systems. A group drive is less for research data, but for self-administration, thus allowing an organizational separation of data for administration and research data. The reasons for such a separation are explained in a post. The group drive is operated in basic infrastructures that are certified according to an industry standard for information security .

You can also find a comparison of storage systems on the RDMG website .

Virtual Servers and Compute Infrastructures

Similar to storage, there are services for server virtualization and for compute as an alternative to self-operated IT basic infrastructures.

Virtualized servers are planned as an alternative to own server hardware . They can handle virtually all IT tasks without having to procure hardware. The linked website lists the conditions as well as the contact channels for further information or ordering.

For exploratory use of virtualized servers, there is the state initiative bwCloud , through which virtual servers can be set up for research and teaching in a self-service manner. The bwCloud website lists conditions, and the FAQ provides hints on possible uses.

For compute, there is the state project bwForCluster NEMO for elementary particle physics, neuroscience, and microsystem technology/materials science. For geosciences, there is the BinAC cluster in Tübingen, and as a general resource, the bwUniCluster (also usable in teaching).

The use of cloud infrastructures may also be of interest for some of your research projects. All aspects of the cloud are also discussed on the aforementioned ILIAS further education platform (see below):

• Thread “PC-Pools effizient und flexibel betreiben”
• Thread “Dienstbeschreibungen”
• Thread “High Performance Computing an der Uni Freiburg und im Land”

If you are interested in scientific computing (on a larger scale) and the use of HPC, you can find further information on a dedicated landing page . This also provides a contact for training courses for HPC.

Advisory and Communication

The RDMG is available for consultations to develop solutions to questions about research data management. These consultations can also take place as group workshops.

There is a list of contact channels for the RZ. For all persons involved in IT support in your area, registration in the Adminform is possible, which is accessible to all members of the university with an account. There is a current list of subject-related support addresses .