Plan data management

What is a data management plan?

A Data Management Plan (DMP) is a document that helps researchers and funding agencies to understand the type of data that will be produced, how they will be managed and preserved, and how they will be shared.

Although a DMP can take many forms, it typically includes the following elements:

Data collection	What type of data will be collected (formats, file naming and organization, version control)?
Documentation and metadata	How will the data be documented and described (metadata, readme files, data dictionaries)?
Storage and backup	How will the data be stored, for how long, where will it be backed-up and who will have access to it?
Preservation	Where will the data be deposited and how (file formats, documentation, anonymization, etc.)?
Sharing and reuse	What data will be shared and under what conditions?
Responsibilities and resources	Who will be responsible for the data at the end of the project and what will be the cost of data management during and after the project?
Ethics and legal compliance	How will sensitive data as well as legal, ethical and intellectual property issues be managed?

Source: DMP Assistant

Funder requirements

Many funding agencies world-wide require a data management plan and/or data sharing as components of a grant application. In Canada, the Canadian Tri-Agency released a data management statement in 2016 and published a research data management policy in 2020 that outlines the agencies' overarching expectations with regard to digital research data management.

Below are the main Canadian and American granting agencies and their policies.

Funding agency	Policy	DMP	Data sharing
SSHRC	Research Data Archive Policy
CIHR	Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications (See section 3.2)
NSERC
Genome Canada	Data Release and Sharing Policies
NIH	NIH Sharing Policies
NSF	Dissemination and Sharing of Research Results
NEH	Data Management Plans for NEH Office of Digital Humanities Proposals and Awards

Tools to assist you with the creation of a DMP

Data management plan preparation tools

Tool	Description	Concordia Library service offer
DMP Assistant	Canadian web-based bilingual tool that guides you step-by-step through developing a data management plan with the help of a generic DMP template. Discipline and funder-specific DMP templates are forthcoming.	What we offer: Provide workshops on writing DMPs Provide guidance on how to use the DMP Assistant Provide guidance on how to answer questions within a DMP template What we do not offer: Write DMPs on behalf of researchers
DMPTool	American tool helpful for writing DMPs requested from Amercian funding agencies. Includes templates from various U.S. funding agencies.
DMPonline	British tool helpful for writing DMPs requested by British and European funding agencies. Includes templates from U.K., U.S. and European funding agencies.

Examples of data management plans

Data Management Plan Database: examples from across the world
DMP exemplars in a variety of disciplines (the Alliance)
Qualitative research DMP exemplars.
DMPs created for a workshop given at Concordia Library in June 2020.

Tri-Agency Guidance

SSHRC Guide to preparing a data management plan

Checklists and self-assessment tools

Questions to ask yourself and general guidelines when writing a data management plan:

Data Management Plan Self-Assessment Questionnaire (Purdue)
Data Management Plan Support (University of Nebraska, Lincoln)
Elements of a DMP: Explains importance of each section and provides example answers (ICPSR)
Checklist for a Data Management Plan (Digital Curation Centre)

Pre-registration

Pre-registration is the practice of publishing, in advance, how you plan to collect data and analyze it. The idea behind pre-registration is to ensure that the data generated during a research project is used to test a hypothesis rather than to generate one. This improves the quality and transparency of research and also addresses the replication crisis.

Pre-registration databases

OSF Preregistration: Centre for Open Science initiative
AsPredicted: Generate a pre-registration document by answering nine questions.
Amercian Economic Association's RCT Registry: Regsitry of Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) in economics and other social sciences
protocols.io: online tool for describing your methodology
Clinical trials registries:

Registration reports

Image source: Centre for Open Science

Registration reports are a form of pre-registration that are peer-reviewed. Researchers submit papers, for review and approval, that describe their research questions and methodology before the data is collected and the results of the study are known.

The Center for Open Science keeps a list of all journals that publish registration reports.

Updated: November 7, 2024