Show some love to your research data this Valentine's Day

Managing, archiving and providing public access to research data have become increasingly important concerns for research funders, journal publishers and universities. When someone looks at your data months or years from now, will they be able to understand how you created it or what it means?

Now through Friday, Feb. 17, celebrate Love Your Data Week, a five-day international event aimed at helping researchers take better care of their data. University Libraries will be posting and tweeting about various data themes all week long.

Today's theme—fitting for Valentine's Day—is data documentation, or metadata, which has been described as a "love note to the future." Check out this data management video from University of Wisconsin Data Services for tips on how to document your data so that other people will love it as much as you do.

The remainder of the week will feature themes such as good data examples (Feb. 15), finding the right data (Feb. 16) and rescuing unloved data (Feb. 17).

Follow all of the great data conversations on Twitter at #LYD17 and #loveyourdata. If you need help with your data, contact your data librarian at data-help@colorado.edu.