Digital Scholar Series 2026 - Term 1

13 Jan 2026
research data lifecycle
13 Jan 2026

2026 Quarter 1 Digital Scholar Series 

The Digital Scholarhsip Services (DSS, formerly Digital Library Services) department of UCT Libraries restarts our Digital Scholar Series in the first term of 2026. We will showcase digital practices and tools to enhance your research skills, with an ongoing focus on managing your research data efficiently. These sessions are open to all postgraduate researchers and staff at UCT. We will also host three dedicated DMP tutorials, allowing anyone working on their DMP to complete it in real time with us. 

Our primary focus in the first term of the year will be on topics covering the opening stages of the research process, such as data management plans (DMPs) and best practices for efficiently capturing and managing research data. Topics covered deal with the management of digital materials for research (what some of us call ‘data’) and touch on digital topics throughout the research lifecycle. The webinars are aimed at making your digital scholarship more efficient, so that your data gives you less hassle and you have more time to focus on your teaching, learning and research.  

See the full schedule and register.  

Creating Data Management Plans with UCT DMP 

  • Thu 2025-02-05
  • Time: 1PM SAST
  • Register: https://uct.ac.za.libcal.com/calendar/libraryevents/dss-plan-dmp
  • "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail” is the age-old phrase; this is where Data Management Plans (DMPs) are really helpful. Rather than just being another box to tick in your MoU, a DMP helps you figure out how you will work with and manage your data throughout your research project. You may not have all the answers yet, and some questions will be tough, but taking the time to try to answer them will save you from moments of failure in the future. This session takes you through UCT DMP, our online tool that guides you through creating your data management plan. After this session, you will no longer fear the DMP. If you cannot make it to this session, look out for the repeat that will happen soon. 

Tutorial - Complete your DMP with UCT DMP 

  • Wed 2025-02-11
  • Time: 1PM SAST
  • Register: https://uct.ac.za.libcal.com/calendar/libraryevents/dss-complete-dmp-tut-v01
  • Need to complete your Data Management Plan (DMP)? Join us as we guide you through every question that forms part of a DMP. As an extra session in our Digital Scholar Series, this hands-on, step-by-step walkthrough will help you complete a DMP using UCT DMP. After a brief introduction, we’ll go through each question in detail and address your discipline-specific concerns. By the end of this session, you might just have a fully completed DMP! 

Tutorial - Complete your DMP with UCT DMP (REPEAT) 

  • Tue 2025-02-17
  • Time: 1PM SAST
  • Register: https://uct.ac.za.libcal.com/calendar/libraryevents/dss-complete-dmp-tut-v02
  • Need to complete your Data Management Plan (DMP)? Join us as we guide you through every question that forms part of a DMP. As an extra session in our Digital Scholar Series, this hands-on, step-by-step walkthrough will help you complete a DMP using UCT DMP. After a brief introduction, we’ll go through each question in detail and address your discipline-specific concerns. By the end of this session, you might just have a fully completed DMP! 

Tutorial - Complete your DMP with UCT DMP (REPEAT) 

  • Thu 2025-02-19
  • Time: 1PM SAST
  • Register: https://uct.ac.za.libcal.com/calendar/libraryevents/dss-complete-dmp-tut-v03
  • Need to complete your Data Management Plan (DMP)? Join us as we guide you through every question that forms part of a DMP. As an extra session in our Digital Scholar Series, this hands-on, step-by-step walkthrough will help you complete a DMP using UCT DMP. After a brief introduction, we’ll go through each question in detail and address your discipline-specific concerns. By the end of this session, you might just have a fully completed DMP! 

Updating your Data Management Plan with UCT DMP 

  • Wed 2025-02-25
  • Time: 1PM SAST
  • Register: https://uct.ac.za.libcal.com/calendar/libraryevents/dss-update-dmp
  • Completing a Data Management Plan at the start of your research project is the best way to start managing your data. But at some point during your project, it might be time to do some updates and rethink your answers. As the UCT DMP platform always keeps your living document editable, this session takes you through updating your DMP with the information you have learned so far during your research project.  

Never name it “final”: Guides on Managing and Storing your Data 

  • Tue 2025-03-03  
  • Time: 1PM SAST
  • Register:  
    https://uct.ac.za.libcal.com/calendar/libraryevents/dss-manage
  • It is great to have a lot of data, but where and how do you store it so that you can easily manage it? If you working as a group, making sure that the right information is used by everyone and making sure it stays original and current is a challenge. This session presents several options on where to store data during your research projects and offers some handy guides on how to organise it. We also look at a few relevant collaborative spaces and tools online that can help you work together. After this session, you won't have to spend hours looking for that elusive file. 

Keeping it tidy: Capturing and Discovering your Data Efficiently 

  • Thu 2025-03-05
  • Time: 1PM SAST
  • Register: https://uct.ac.za.libcal.com/calendar/libraryevents/dss-capture
  • Taking the right steps at the start of a research project can make all subsequent work much easier. How you collect and capture the information that you need to do your research (your data) is one such step. This session looks at ways to organise what you collect and how to best capture it. We cover subjects from using forms for data capture to file naming and recognizing the value of metadata. After this session, you may well see the world in rows and columns. 

Is this thing on? Getting your data ready for Analysis 

Once your data is captured, it is time to start analysing it. No matter your research project, it helps to ensure that the data is ready to be wrangled, re-formatted, examined, queried, etc. In this session, we look at how you can ensure that your data is ready for the rigorous process of turning it into information. 

Working with Sensitive Data at UCT 

  • Tue 2025-03-17  
  • Time: 1PM SAST
  • Register: https://uct.ac.za.libcal.com/calendar/libraryevents/dss-data-sensitive
  • Data is powerful and with great power comes great responsibility. In this session, we explore sensitive data, how to identify it and how it should be handled during a research project. We explore topics such as de-identification, secure storage solutions, open licenses and appropriate embargos to assist you with ensuring that you are not on the wrong side of ethics and laws. After this session, you should be more sensitive about working with data! 

To DOI or not to DOI? Sharing and Publishing Research Openly with ZivaHub

  • Thu 2025-03-19
  • Time: 1PM SAST
  • Register:  
    https://uct.ac.za.libcal.com/calendar/libraryevents/dss-publish-zivahub
  • Research outputs become more valuable once they are shared, allowing others to use them to glean information, build knowledge, and acknowledge the original authors in a scholarly manner. In today's academic landscape, you get credit for publishing the data you produce and share, leading to new opportunities for study. To do so, your data must be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR). We look at how you can make your data FAIR by sharing and publishing it on UCT's data repository ZivaHub. After this session, DOIs might be your new best friends. 

GIS @ UCTL

  • Wed 2025-03-25  
  • Time: 1PM SAST
  • Register: https://uct.ac.za.libcal.com/calendar/libraryevents/spatialdata
  • In this session we unravel the mystery of space as seen through the eyes of the GIS team. We introduce you to spatial data, outline what we do, cover some of the tools we use, and share with you how spatial data may be of use to students in their research. 

After registering for an event, you will receive an email with a calendar invite attached. Please add it to your calendar. All sessions will start at 1 PM with the topics and dates listed below. The sessions will be hosted on MS Teams and will last 45 minutes, with an extra 15 minutes for questions or discussions. DLS staff will be present to moderate the chat and to help answer your questions as they come up.