A doctoral researcher collects insect observation data over many years; a colleague carefully maps the habitats of rare plant species. Both generate valuable insights into species and ecosystems – yet the impact of their work remains limited to their own projects if the data they collect are not organised in a way that allows others to find and reuse them.
To support researchers in this process, the NFDI4Biodiversity training team has developed an openly accessible self-learning unit. Its key advantage: researchers can complete the online course at their own pace and easily integrate it into their daily work. Step by step, participants are introduced to the fundamentals of research data management (RDM) – from planning and transparent documentation to publishing their data in suitable repositories.
The response has been remarkable: the ILIAS course alone was accessed more than 2,000 times in 2025. In addition, the text version of the course has been read over 1,100 times and downloaded more than 600 times. As an Open Educational Resource, the module is intentionally designed so that other institutions can adopt and further develop it – for example through exportable versions for learning platforms such as ILIAS or Moodle. In this way, the format not only strengthens researchers’ RDM skills directly, but also creates a shared foundation for training the next generation of scientists.
The self-learning unit was developed as part of the NFDI4Biodiversity training programme by the Philipps University Marburg and the German Federation for Biological Data (GFBio e.V.), with support from the Bavarian Natural History Collections (SNSB) and the Center for Interdisciplinary Data and Simulation Science (CIDAS) at the University of Göttingen. In terms of content, the module focuses on discipline-specific aspects of RDM in biodiversity research, while referring learners to existing training resources provided by the Hessian Research Data Infrastructures (HeFDI) for more general topics.
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