Although graduate students in Ecology learn about methods for collecting ecological data, there is less emphasis on managing the resulting data effectively. This is an increasingly important skill set; funding agencies have begun to require data management plans, and journals are requiring that data pertaining to published articles be accessible. Ecologists with good data management skills will be able to maximize the productivity of their own research program, effectively and efficiently share their data with the scientific community, and potentially benefit from the re-use of their data by others. The purpose of this workshop is to give attendees a set of practical tools for organizing and sharing their data through all parts of the research cycle. The target audience is early-career scientists (graduate students, post-docs) but is open to any researchers who would benefit from developing better data management skills. Faculty members who would like to include best practices for preparing data in curricula are encouraged to attend. Topics will include data structure, quality control, data documentation, and the importance of good data management practices for data sharing, collaboration, and data re-use. Workshop participants must bring their own laptop to participate in hands-on activities and are encouraged to bring their own data sets, which instructors will assist in organizing. The content of this workshop will overlap with last year’s workshop, “How to Prepare Ecological Data Sets for Effective Analysis and Sharing”. There is a related workshop on preparing a Data Management Plan that would be useful for both last year’s and this year’s participants.