"No Data" to Manage? Think Again!

Many researchers in humanities and theoretical disciplines struggle with Research Data Management (RDM), often thinking they have no data because their work primarily involves books, literature, or purely theoretical processes. This poster aims to assist these researchers by providing a clearer understanding of how RDM applies to their work, even if it does not involve data in the ‘traditional’ sense (numbers, measurements, etc.). Research data includes all digital or physical data, regardless of how they are collected or stored, that are used or analysed to support research findings and validate results or are underlying a reasoning, discussion, or calculation in the research. 

To understand what researchers in humanities and theoretical disciplines consider when they think of data, five professors from literary studies, social sciences, educational sciences, theoretical mathematics, and theoretical computer science were interviewed. Based on this deeper understanding, a poster was created listing some popular research methods in Humanities as well as examples of generated and (re)used data. The resulting poster was disseminated both in print and online form in the beginning of the 2024-2025 academic year. The VUB RDM team received lots of positive reactions about this poster especially from researchers in Social Sciences and Humanities.