Subject Guides: Research data management: a practical guide: Planning your data management

lined paper and pencil

A data management plan is a document describing how you intend to create, organise, document, store, and share the data used or generated throughout the project lifecycle.

Importantly it addresses data protection and confidentiality issues, asking you to consider what is appropriate given the nature of your data and any restrictions you may need to impose.

DMP review service

The Open Research team offer a data management plan review service, where we will review your plan for you before you submit it.

To use the service, select 'Request feedback' in DMPonline. Please allow at least five working days before your submission deadline.

University DMP templates

York has developed a simplified DMP template [Google Doc]. It's available for use in DMPonline.

This template is designed for use by postgraduate researchers but may be used by staff wishing to produce a plan for unfunded research.

A DMP template for Masters student research projects [Google Doc] is also provided. Log in to your University Google account to access it.

Digital Research Alliance of Canada: Introduction to data management plans

This video provides an introduction to data management plans and talks about each component of a plan.

Funded research

Funder requirements

Many research funders require a data management plan for the research they fund. This requirement may also form part of the funding application.

Your plan should show your awareness of good practice and, where appropriate, reassure the funder that your proposal is in line with their data policy.

Costing RDM

Most funders will cover the financial cost of data management activities within the research grant.

"Principle 7 It is appropriate to use public funds to support the management and sharing of publicly funded research data." - UKRI guidance on best practice in the management of research data

Data management costs may include people’s time (e.g. preparing data/metadata for ingest into a data repository), equipment, infrastructure and tools to manage, document, organise, store, archive and share research data.

If your research is funded: Check your funder's data policy to see if a statement is made on whether these costs will be met. If costs will be met, you should gather together all data management-related activity costs and include these in your data management plan.

The UK Data Service offers a useful costing research data management tool to help researchers cost the activities needed to make data shareable above standard research procedures.

The University of Bristol provides guidance on anticipating the costs of research data management [PDF].

Use DMPonline to write your plan

To write your data management plan it is recommended that you use the web-based tool DMPonline, as it provides funder templates (including UKRI) and the York DMP template, detailed guidance to help you write your plan, and features such as sharing and export options.

DMPonline

When you start a plan in DMPonline you are asked a few questions to determine the appropriate template to display, thereafter guidance is provided to help you interpret and answer the questions in that template.

If your research is unfunded: Tick the box 'No funder associated with this plan or my funder is not listed' and the York DMP template will be displayed for your use. The York template includes guidance and examples to help you complete your own plan.

View the DMPonline user guide [Google Doc] for guidance on using the tool.

The UKRI Funding Service

For some UKRI awards, but not all, researchers are now required to submit a short data management statement in the new UKRI Funding Service and not a full data management plan. We await guidance/instruction from UKRI of any new requirements.

Guidance and examples

To help you write your data management plan, the University provides guidance in DMPonline.

How to develop a data management and sharing plan
A guide from the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) that includes UK funder expectations and practical guidance on how to meet these. Also provided is a useful checklist for a data management plan.

Data management planning for [funder name] funding applicants
The University of Bristol provides detailed planning guides for researchers applying to major funders.

Take a look at other people's plans so that you can get a feel for the detail and language that is expected.

Public DMPs
Data management plans created in DMPonline and shared by their owners.

Example DMPs
The DCC makes available examples of plans, organised by research funder.

Research data management: a practical guide

Planning your data management

The key to successfully managing data is to plan ahead.

At the start, or even better before a project begins, it is wise to fully consider all the issues that may arise in managing and sharing your research data. Using a checklist and/or writing a data management plan will help you do this.