RDA announces new release of Research Data Framework

NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is pleased to announce the release of its Research Data Framework (RDaF) Version 2.0, both as a traditional publication and an interactive web application. The RDaF V2.0 is a unique, multifaceted, and customizable tool for the management of research data from an organization-wide to an individual researcher level. Developed with extensive stakeholder input, RDaF V2.0 has the following features and functionality:

• Based on a six-stage research data lifecycle
• Defined topics and subtopics for each stage that may be used to assess the state of research data management (RDM)
• More than 1000 Informative references for the subtopics that assist a user in understanding and implementing a subtopic
• Sample profiles for eight common RDM jobs or functions consisting of relevant topics and subtopics to consider in fulfilling RDM responsibilities
• An on-line tool for developing customized profiles, available at https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1500-18r1sup2 (in a zip file)
• Overarching themes that illustrate connections among the lifecycle stages

The RDaF V2.0 web application provides an interface to all the content of the RDaF V2.0 publication described above in an interactive environment. The web application is easy and intuitive to navigate and includes additional functionality such as the capabilities to link subtopics to their corresponding informative references and to direct a user to the original source of any reference.

The RDaF V2.0 publication is available at https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1500-18r2 and the interactive web application is available at https://rdaf.nist.gov. As background material, the RDaF Project webpage available at https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/research-data-framework-rdaf contains two brief tutorials delivered by NIST RDaF Project Manager Robert Hanisch.

A formal press release has also been made available: https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2024/02/nist-releases-version-20-research-data-framework-rdaf

Please direct questions and comments to [email protected]

This article was first published on 12 February by RDA.