The topic of this week was bioinformatics and data management. Unfortunately I don’t have much to reflect on regarding bioinformatics other than the fact that I need a lot more experience and exposure before I would feel comfortable analyzing my own data. I think it would be valuable to have optional workshops for students who need more experience with bioinformatics. As for data management, I was surprised to learn that more people aren’t using Google Drive to back up their work. A few people mentioned that the UMaine system provides unlimited data storage to those with @maine.edu accounts. It is my understanding that any research conducted while employed with the university is technically owned by the university, so the speculation over “what happens to my stuff when I’m done with UMaine?” is confusing. I use Google for everything- data storage, writing, spreadsheets, the whole lot! Having been exposed to GitHub in this class, I plan on using Git to store my data for eDNA work going forward, especially since NSF requires grant recipients to publish open source data and bioinformatics data takes up a lot of space!