Pecha kucha presentation given at the 2013 Repository Fringe on DMPonline and how the DCC is changing the tool in light of feedback received during an evaluation
7. what’s the minimum you
can actually get away with
what’s the minimum you
can actually get away with
CC-BY Richard of England
www.flickr.com/photos/richardofengland/6788829651
10. CC-BY-NC-SA by UWW ResNet
www.flickr.com/photos/uwwresnet/6280880034
• Often asked several questions instead of one
• Questions don’t always match perfectly
• Can make output too long to submit
11. New approach
Funder or institutional questions
asked & answered directly
Use themes to draw
in guidance from
funders, unis and
disciplines
CC-BY- by prusakolep
www.flickr.com/photos/mikemike/52687632
12. CC-BY by Matt from
www.flickr.com/photos/londonmatt/3163571645
This change:
• Asks fewer questions to keep plans short
• Emphasises guidance to help users respond
• Lets users to delve into guidance as needed
14. CC-BY-NC by W Hannabuss
www.flickr.com/photos/20674027@N03/4315274517
• Use cases and database re-design complete
• Expect v.4 beta in Aug/Sept for testing
• Roll-out of v.4 from October 2013
15.
16.
17.
18. Register: https://dmponline.dcc.ac.uk/users/sign_up
Request new features on GitHub:
https://github.com/DigitalCurationCentre/DMPonline
Contact us about collaboration on:
dmponline@dcc.ac.uk
CC-BY by andrusdevelopment
www.flickr.com/photos/wandrus/4781521814
19. • Screengrab of tool / new look
CC-BY by zzpza
www.flickr.com/photos/zzpza/3269784239
Three things you may want to do to customise
DMPonline for your university:
1. Provide guidance and suggested answers
2. Ask additional questions
3. Have your own template for DMPs
20. Get a demo after the session
CC-BY-NC-ND by Universo Producao
www.flickr.com/photos/universoproducao/8105479413
Notas do Editor
I’m going to tell you about DMPonline, the DCC’s web-based tool to help researchers write Data Management Plans. Specifically, I’ll talk about the changes we’re making as we did an evaluation at the end of last year and are overhauling how the tool works.
Where did the idea for DMPonline come from? Lots of funders ask for DMPs and we wanted to help researchers respond to these requirements. We launched DMPonline in April 2010 at the Jisc conference and have released an updated version each year since.
Over the years, a lot has changed. Researchers are increasingly under pressure as more funders now ask for DMPs and these requirements are evolving / updating and several universities ask for DMPs too. We want to pull together these different requirements for researchers as they ultimately just want to write one Data Management Plan.
Last year we ran a major evaluation of the tool... We wanted to check it met these different use cases and that it worked well – that it was easy for researchers to write a DMP. What I’m going to do is summarise what we found and explain how we’re changing things in light of that.
There were various things people liked: Having an online tool Technically very strong (well-coded) Liked the sharing feature Big demand for customisations and to feed into plans
But there were equally things that people didn’t like: Researchers found the process of writing a plan in the tool a bit long and overwhelming. They felt there were too many questions and too much precise detail. The mappings (how we match questions and guidance) caused confusion too. Essentially these issues are down to the conceptual framework of how we used the DMP checklist in the tool so I’ll explain that in a bit more detail in a moment.
Essentially what users were looking for was the minimum you can get away with – the quickest, easiest process with lots of guidance and example answers to copy/paste – so that’s what we’re aiming to provide in v.4.
I mentioned that many of the issues were down to how we use the checklist in the tool. Effectively this is a big long list of questions. We’re shortening the checklist and we’re changing how it’s used. Previously it was the way in which we associated questions from funders or unis with relevant guidance.
So, you can see here we have a funder question at the top and we mapped this to questions from the DCC checklist (which is what users answer) and guidance was linked to these questions too. So the mapping is upfront in the tool and there were a few problems with this.
In some cases several questions were asked instead of one and researchers could find this a bit long-winded and spoon fed. They just wanted to respond directly to the one funder question. On occasion, the questions didn’t match perfectly. There may be a nuance of meaning that was missed in the interpretation. And it could make DMPs too long to submit as funders have strict page limits.
So now, we’re asking and answering funder and university questions directly and the way we pull in guidance is by mapping themes in the background – so, we say for example, this question is about storage and here’s a piece of guidance from Edinburgh uni about storage that we’ll present.
The change means that [bullets] – by moving the mapping to the background, users aren’t forced to walk through the checklist – they can delve into guidance as needed.
The revised checklist is online – this has been condensed significantly. 100+ questions to 13. Focus is now on the main themes that need to be addressed. Please feedback.
The technical development is also pressing ahead. Not long til v.4 will be out.
We’ve also redesigned the interface. We’re aiming to keep things very clean and streamlined. You can see here on the homepage that the registration form is zipped up to keep users from scrolling. Just open it up if you need to fill it in. The same principle applies when you go into the tool...
Here you can see the sections of a plan – you just expand each as you want to fill it in. There’s also an option for phases so researchers can start a plan during the grant application and then go on to fill it in during the project once funded.
And when you’re answering a question you have any examples or suggested answers directly below and the guidance in a consertina on the right. There’s also a progress bar to show how far through the process you are.
If you want to join in…
And if you want to customise the tool, there are three things we envisage: Primary one is providing guidance and suggested answers as this is what researchers are looking to unis for. You may also want to ask additional questions or have your own template if you require DMPs.