Dr. W is a Principal Investigator leading a large research laboratory with several technicians, two postdoctoral fellows, three graduate students, and several undergraduate students. The entire group has been working on a project related to the relationship between hormones and obesity. They have isolated a key hormone in mice that is necessary to maintain normal weight, and have recently published a paper on this new finding, with Dr. W as the senior author. Two months after the paper has been published, Dr. W receives an inquiry from a researcher at another university who has had difficulty replicating some of the group’s work. The researcher requests to see the original data used to support a figure presented in the paper. Dr. W asks members of his team for the original data related to the figure and they report that the experiments that generated that data were conducted by Dr. V, a post-doctoral fellow who recently left the laboratory to take a position in another country. Dr. V had been told to leave the original data in the lab and to take copies. A search of the laboratory for the original data has been less than satisfactory. The group discovers that there are several problems with the data, including the lack of a bound notebook and the availability of some “post-it” sticky notes written in another language. They also have trouble retrieving data that were stored on the computer used by Dr. V, which has been infected by a virus.

1. What are the data management issues can you identify in this scenario?
2. How should Dr. W and the research team deal with each issue?
3. Are there any data management practices in your research group that could be improved?
4. Discuss briefly a plan to follow up on this conversation.

Please see the Resources link above for more information about Data Management Practices.