Interactive Powerpoint_How to Master effective communication
Data Management Plans: a gentle introduction
1. Data Management Plans:
a gentle introduction
Martin Donnelly, Digital Curation Centre, University of Edinburgh
Royal Holloway University of London, 22 August 2014
2. OVERVIEW (60 mins)
What is data management planning?
What’s required?
Who’s involved?
Short exercise, inc. feeding back (30 mins)
What resources are available to help?
3. 1. Data Management Planning (DMP)
Data management planning is the process of planning,
describing and communicating the activities carried out during
the research lifecycle in order to…
Keep sensitive data safe
Maximise data’s reuse potential
Support longer-term preservation
4. What is a DMP?
Research funders (and other bodies) often ask for a short
statement/plan to be submitted alongside grant applications
HEIs increasingly ask their researchers to do this too, as do
some publishers…
In general, they want to know:
- What kinds of data will be created, and how
- How will the data be documented and described?
- Are there ethical or Intellectual Property issues?
- What are the arrangements for data sharing and reuse?
- What is the strategy for longer-term preservation?
But they all have different requirements and emphases,
and express them in different ways…
5. Benefits of Data Management Planning
It is intuitive that planned activities stand a better chance of
meeting their goals than unplanned ones. The process of
planning is also a process of communication, increasingly
important in multi-partner research. Collaboration should be
more harmonious if project partners (in industry, other
universities, other countries…) are in accord
In terms of data security, if there are genuinely good reasons
not to publish/share data, in whole or in part, you will be on
more solid ground if you flag these up early in the process
DMP also provides an ideal opportunity to engender good
practice with regard to (e.g.) file formats, metadata
standards, storage and risk management practices, leading
to greater longevity of data and higher quality standards
6. 2. DMP requirements
6 of the 7 RCUK councils require data management
plans at the application stage
NERC also expect an expanded DMP during the
project, prepared in collaboration with the
appropriate NERC data centre
Other major funders such as Cancer Research UK
and the Wellcome Trust also require DMPs
Horizon 2020 includes a data management planning
pilot, spanning three phases… more on that later
8. 3. DMP roles (and exercise)
I mentioned earlier that RDM is a hybrid activity, involving
multiple stakeholder types.
So who’s involved?
The principal investigator (usually ultimately responsible)
What about the research assistants? (they may be more
involved in day-to-day data management)
And the institution’s funding office?
And the Library/IT/Research Funding office?
What about partners based in other institutions?
And commercial partners?
Etc
9. Researcher
Research
Support Office Data Library / Repository
Computing
Support
Faculty Ethics
Committee
Etc...
DATA
MANAGEMENT
…PLAN?
UNRULY
DATA
10. Interactive exercise: data management planning
In pairs or individually…
Select one of the DMP Checklist headings
(left), and brainstorm all the stakeholders
you think might be involved (and how/why)
– be specific!
Remember to think of different stages of
research: pre-award, in-project, post-project
We’ll have a short reporting/discussion
session at the end
N.B. There’s a newer version of this document,
the Checklist for a Data Management Plan, v4.0
(2013) www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/data-management-
plans - the coverage is much the
same, but the arrangement is different
SECTIONS
§1: Introduction and Context
§2: Data Types, Formats,
Standards and Capture Methods
§3: Ethics and Intellectual Property
§4: Access, Data Sharing and Re-use
§5: Short-Term Storage and Data
Management
§6: Deposit and Long-Term
Preservation
§7: Resourcing
§8: Adherence and Review
§9: Agreement/Ratification by
Stakeholders
§10: Annexes
11. Data management planning exercise: outcomes
It’s not necessary – or even desirable – for every
researcher (or research administrator) to become an
expert in every aspect of data management
Universities have an increasing obligation to provide
infrastructure and support
RHUL update after this session
Specific expertise may be available from the research
office, library, IT, departmental support staff, legal
services, etc…
12. 4. Tools and resources
Book chapters
Donnelly, M. (2012) “Data Management Plans and
Planning”, in Pryor (ed.) Managing Research Data, London:
Facet
Sallans, A. and Lake, S. (2014) “Data Management
Assessment and Planning Tools”, in Ray (ed.) Research Data
Management, West Lafayette: Purdue University Press
DCC Checklist for a Data Management Plan:
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/data-management-plans/
checklist
Guidance, e.g. “How-To Develop a Data Management and
Sharing Plan”
Links to all DCC DMP resources via
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/data-management-plans
DMPonline: https://dmponline.dcc.ac.uk/
13. DMPonline
A free Web-based, Open Source data management
planning tool
v1 (April 2010)
v2 (March 2011) added scope for multiple versions
of plans and templates
v3 (May 2012) added functionality for sharing plans
v4 (November 2013) changed relationship with
Checklist, improved usability
Technologies involved: Ruby on Rails, JavaScript,
MySQL database
Quick walkthrough…
14. Creating an account
Asks for email,
organisation and
password
Auto-fills uni options
as you type
Can select ‘other
organisation’ if yours
is not listed
15. Creating a plan
Select funder (if any)
Select relevant
organisation for DMP
questions and guidance
Select other sources of
guidance
16. Tailoring at multiple levels
Options to have guidance at
organisation and ‘unit’ level
e.g. by discipline, group,
department, institute…
18. Overview of sections
Summary page with
dropdown buttons to
expand and answer
each section
Enables multiple phases
19. Questions and guidance
Easy-format text boxes to answer
Can provide examples / suggested
responses, and pre-populate text
boxes with default format for reply
20. Answering questions
Notes who has answered
the question
Progress bar updates how
many questions left
21. Sharing plan with collaborators
Allow colleagues to read-only,
read-write, or become co-owners
23. Other features
Export formats: TXT, PDF, HTML (DOCX & CSV in preparation)
Institutions can customise the tool by…
Profiling local support via custom guidance and boilerplate text
Selecting from, and adding to, the standard question set
Add logo, change colour scheme, custom URL, etc
www.dcc.ac.uk/news/customising-dmponline
We’ve created a template for Horizon 2020 based on the annexes
in the Guidelines for Data Management. This has three phases -
one for the initial plan due within 6 months (based on annex 1)
and another two for a DMP at the mid-term and final review
stages (based on annex 2). The FOSTER (Facilitate Open Science
Training for European Research) project will be offering training on
this: http://www.fosteropenscience.eu
24. Thank you
Questions?
Digital Curation Centre
University of Edinburgh
martin.donnelly@ed.ac.uk
Image credits
Slide 1 – http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/LernaeanHydraRephael.jpg
Slide 2 – http://assets.worldwildlife.org/photos/934/images/hero_small/forest-overview-HI_115486.jpg?1345533675
Slide 9 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hercules_slaying_the_Hydra.jpg
All images used under Creative Commons licenses
Martin Donnelly
This work is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution
2.5 UK: Scotland License.
For more about DCC services see www.dcc.ac.uk
or follow us on twitter @digitalcuration and #ukdcc
@mkdDCC
Notas do Editor
A DMP is a basic statement of how you will create, manage, share and preserve your data
Funders expect the decisions to be justified, particularly where it’s not in line with their policy (e.g. limits on data sharing)
Ultimately, a DMP should engage researchers in conversations with those providing [supporting] services. In this context, a DMP becomes a document of relationships that should be shared, edited, and monitored among those contributing to a project. From this viewpoint, a DMP functions as a dynamic document of agreements.
From “The Value of Data Management Plans” by Chuck Humphrey, Data Library Coordinator at the University of Alberta, Canada, and Academic Director of the Research Data Centre
http://preservingresearchdataincanada.net/2014/02/13/the-value-of-data-management-plans/
This exercise introduces the DCC’s “Checklist for a Data Management Plan”, and focuses on the actors in your institution (and possibly beyond) who could be involved in each section of a data management plan…