A written Data Management Plan (DMP) is your opportunity to explain to the funder and others who may be interested in your data how you will make sure that you and your team handle and curate the data properly, complying with all of your duties and any legal requirements. It sets out your intentions, planned procedures and responsibilities relating to research data management.
Data Management Planning online tools
What needs to be included in a plan?
Exact requirements will vary between funders and disciplines but there are some key elements to consider:
- The project and its context – why and how your data is going to be created.
- Data formats – you will need to consider any software you will be using, how useable that might be in future, how your data will be structured, documented and quality checked so that it is intelligible to others.
- Ethical considerations – this can vary from considering whether you have obtained consent from research subjects to use their data to who might own the intellectual property in any data you produce.
- Storage – both short and long term storage needs to be considered. You may decide to use one method while you are working on a project but use another if you need to store the data long term as many funders require. Storage needs to be secure and viable for the long term.
- Reuse – consider whether you will be making the data open access or available on request and how this will be managed.
- Resource issues – consider whether there will be any costs involved in managing your data and include this in your grant application where possible. The UK Data Archive have a tool that can be useful in considering research data costs.
The UK Digital Curation Centre have a useful checklist for data management plans.
Further Reading & Resources
