Research Data Access and Preservation Summit, 2014 San Diego, CA March 26-28, 2014 Lightning Talks William Mischo, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

1. An Analysis and Characterization of
DMPs in NSF Proposals from the
University of Illinois
RDAP14 Research Data Access & Preservation
Summit
March 26, 2014
William H. Mischo, Mary C. Schlembach, Megan A.
O’Donnell
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Iowa State University

2. NSF data Management Plans
• Data Management Plans (DMPs): required
element in NSF proposals, January 2011
• July 2011: the Library, working with the campus
Office of Sponsored Programs and Research
Administration (OSPRA) began an analysis of
DMPs in submitted NSF grant proposals
• Currently, looked at 1,600 grants with 1,260 in
the analysis.

3. Reasons for DMPs
• Make key research data available and sharable
• Allow the use of data for verification of results
and reproducibility of research work
• Agency can show significant return on
investment to justify funding
• We want to know storage venues and
mechanisms for sharing and reuse
• Also use of local templates and local campus
resources such as IDEALS

4. Follow-on
• Develop campus-wide infrastructure (Research
Data Service - RDS) to support UIUC researchers
in managing their data
• Assist in compliance with federal agencies
• Develop important partnerships with campus
units (CITES, NCSA, Colleges) and national
entities
• Develop best practices and standard approaches

5. Analysis
• Analysis attempts to characterize and classify
DMPs into categories
• DMPs assigned multiple categories
• 1,260 DMPs from July 2011 to November 2013

6. Categories
• PI Server – Servers and workstations that the PIs
(and their students/staff) use to store project
data. Examples: laboratory server, external hard
drive, and group computer.
• PI Website – Websites edited or administered
by the PI or a group they belong to. If a
departmental URL was given, it was also given
the term “department.” Examples: lab website,
project website, wiki, PI’s website

7. Categories
• Campus – Services located, operated by, run by
UIUC or endorsed by UIUC. This includes IDEALS,
netfiles and Box.net, NCSA, and Beckman.
• Department – Used when a department was
specifically mentioned as providing a storage or
hosting resource. Examples: Departmental
website, departmental server, departmental
backup service or a web address traced back to
an academic department. Also given the
“campus” label.

8. Categories
• Remote – Services and sites not located on the
UIUC campus. Examples: NASA, other campuses,
collaborative projects, non-UIUC institutes
• Disciplinary – Disciplinary repositories. Many are
open access but not all. Examples: GenBank,
arXiv, ICPSR, SEAD, Nanohub, and Dryad
• Cloud – Storage services using cloud technology.
Examples: Google Documents, Google Code,
Box.net, Amazon, Microsoft, Dropbox

9. Categories
• Publication – Scholarly outputs including journal
articles, workshops, and conference
presentations or posters. Very few DMPs were
explicit as to how their “publications” and data
were related or separated.
• Analog - Physical records including lab
notebooks, photographs, and files. Does not
include specimens or artifacts.
• Specimens - – Physical specimens; usually
biological or artifacts

10. Categories
• Optical Disc - DVD, CD, and Blu-ray discs. Often
used as a backup mechanism
• Not specified – the DMP was not specific
enough for us to record details
• No Data – Indicated the proposal will produce
no data products. Many were theoretical studies
(math), travel grants, or workshop planning
sessions.
• Local Template Used

11. All DMPs (including “no data”)
n = 1260
Category Number Percent
PI Server 503 39.9%
PI Website 529 41.9%
Campus 667 52.9%
Department 142 11.2%
Remote 353 28.0%
Disciplinary 275 21.8%
Publication 556 44.1%
Cloud 63 5.0%
Optical Disc 56 4.0%
Analog 131 10.4%
Specimens 111 8.8%
Not Specified 66 5.2%
Collaborative 164 13.0%
No Data 103 8.2%

12. Data Venue and Risk
Data Location
Submitted Proposals
Funded Proposals
Since July 2011
n = 1260
Risk of Loss,
Corruption, Breach n = 298
Risk of Loss,
Corruption, Breach
PI Server/Website 64% High 61% High
Departmental Server/Website 11.2% Medium to High 7% Medium to High
Campus-Wide Resource 52.9%
Low
45%
Low
IDEALS Institutional Repository 21.9% 19.8%
NCSA 4.3% 16.4%
Disciplinary Repository/Cloud 25.8% Medium to Low 21.4% Medium to Low
Remote Repository 28% Medium to High 22.8% Medium to High
Optical Disk, Specimens, Analog 19.4% Out of Scope 11% Out of Scope

13. Notables
• Funded: 298
• Used locally developed template: 254
• IDEALS: 275
• NCSA/XSEDE: 55
• Dryad: 22
• ICPSR: 17
• Genbank/Genetics Repository: 55
• ArX: 61
• Only 87 DMPS contained information about file
types

14. Analysis
• Any differences in storage venue or technologies
between the unfunded proposals and the funded
proposals?
• Any differences between the proposals from the
first year and the more current proposals?
• Can look at differences in any of the proposal
categories between funded and unfunded
• 734 active NSF awards, $861.8 million

15. Analysis
• Use of IDEALS institutional repository: 62
funded, 197 not funded: chi-square: 0.17
• Storing data on PI server or website: 183
funded, 569 not funded: chi-square: 0.7
• Disciplinary or Cloud: 67 funded, 241 not
funded: chi-square: 0.85
• Remote storage: 68 funded, 267 not funded:
chi-square: 3.01

16. Analysis
• Use of IDEALS before August 2012 = 108, after
(thru November 2013) = 166, chi-square: 4.59, p
< .05
• Use of disciplinary or Cloud before August 2012 =
121, after = 182, chi-square: 4.33, p < .05

17. Implications
• Conclusions: 1: no significant differences
between funded/unfunded proposals in storage
venues -- no advantage in IDEALS, Disciplinary; 2:
more recent proposals suggest IDEALS and
disciplinary repositories included at a
significantly higher level
• What is the role of the library? The campus? The
subject discipline?
• Connecting data to the literature important