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Your tasks: Data management plan

What should you write in a Data Management Plan (DMP)?

Description

A DMP should address a broad range of data management aspects, regardless of funder or institution specific templates. It is important to be aware of the current best practices in DMPs before starting one. For more generic information about data management planning, see also our Planning page.

Considerations

Common topics of a DMP are:

  • General information about the project.
  • Description of the datasets that will be used and generated.
  • Description of metadata, ontologies and data documentation.
  • Storage solutions, data security and preservation strategy that will be adopted during and after the project.
  • How, when and where data will be shared and published.
  • Costs and resources needed for data management.
  • Ethical and legal issues, such as privacy, intellectual property and licences.

Solutions

  • This website includes best practices and guidelines about the different aspects of research data management that should be covered in a DMP.
  • Core requirements for DMP have been described by Science Europe.
  • Consider the DMP Common Standard from the Research Data Alliance as a reference data model for organising the different topics.

What template should you use to draft your DMP?

Description

A number of DMP templates are currently available, originating from different funding agencies or institutions. Moreover, there are ongoing efforts to develop templates for machine-actionable DMPs.

Considerations

  • Each funding agency could require or recommend a specific DMP template.
  • Your institution could require and recommend a DMP template.
  • Template could be presented as list of questions in text format or in a machine-actionable format.

Solutions

  • Consult the documentation of your funding agency or institution, or contact them to figure out if they require or recommend a DMP template.
  • A core DMP template has been provided by Science Europe.
  • Read DMP guidelines from the Horizon Europe Programme Guide and the Horizon Europe Annotated Model Grant Agreement. The Horizon Europe DMP template can be downloaded from the Reference Documents page, by clicking on “Templates & forms”, “Project reporting templates” and then on “Data management plan (HE)”.
  • Consider adopting the DMP Common Standard model from the Research Data Alliance if you want to produce a machine-actionable DMP template.

What tool should you use to write your DMP?

Description

DMPs can be written offline by using the downloaded template in a text document format. However, a number of web-based DMP tools are currently available that greatly facilitate the process, as they usually contain several DMP templates and provide guidance in interpreting and answering the questions. Some of the tools also allow collaboration on a DMP and track the progress as it is a living document.

Considerations

  • Check what DMP tool is recommended or provided by your funding agency.
  • Check what DMP tool is recommended or provided by your institute.
  • Make sure that the tool you choose includes the DMP template that you need.
  • If you want to produce a machine-actionable DMP, you need to make sure the tool you choose allows exporting the DMP in a machine-actionable format (e.g. JSON) rather than only as a PDF document.

Solutions

  • Use the tool suggested by your funding agency or institution.
  • Choose one of the following online DMP tools (ordered alphabetically).
    • Data Stewardship Wizard: publicly available open-source tool to collaboratively compose data management plans through smart and customisable questionnaires with FAIRness evaluation.
    • DMP Canvas Generator: this tool, mainly for researchers in Switzerland, is based on a questionnaire following the structure of the SNSF (Swiss National Science Foundation) instructions for DMP submission. Each Swiss High School can develop a specific template/canvas.
    • DAMAP: tool for machine actionable Data Management Plans.
    • DMP Canvas Generator: this tool, mainly for researchers in Switzerland, is based on a questionnaire following the structure of the SNSF (Swiss National Science Foundation) instructions for DMP submission. Each Swiss High School can develop a specific template/canvas.
    • DMPonline: tool widely used in Europe and many universities or institutes provide a DMPonline instance to researchers.
    • DMPTool: widely used tool and many universities or institutes provide a DMPTool instance to researchers.
    • DMPRoadmap: DMP Roadmap is a Data Management Planning tool. Management and development of DMP Roadmap is jointly provided by the Digital Curation Centre (DCC), http://www.dcc.ac.uk/, and the University of California Curation Center (UC3), http://www.cdlib.org/services/uc3/. The DMPTool and DMPonline sites are both now running from the joint DMPRoadmap codebase.
    • easy.DMP: tool provided by the pan-European network EUDAT.
    • Argos: the joint effort of OpenAIRE and EUDAT to deliver an open platform for Data Management Planning.
  • Examples of useful resources for writing and implementing a DMP.
    • FAIR Implementation Profile and FIP Wizard are effective instruments for clearly defining and explaining the particular implementation choices required to effectively enact FAIR principles during and after the course of a research project.
    • Research Data Management Organiser: tool that supports the systematic planning, organisation and implementation of research data management throughout the course of a project.
    • Resources about data management plan can be found via the DMPlanner registry.
    • Webinars explaining what a data management plan is and when you might need one, such as the Research Management Plan webinar produced in collaboration with Dr. Rob Hooft, Technical Coordinator of the Dutch TechCentre for Life Sciences, could be useful instruments to learn more about the topic.

Related pages

More information

Skip tool table
Tool or resource Description Related pages Registry
Argos Plan and follow your data. Bring your Data Management Plans closer to where data are generated, analysed and stored. Training
DAMAP It guides you step by step through a DMP and lets you export a pre-filled DMP as a Word document that you can customize and use for submission to funders. Also, DAMAP is compatible with the RDA recommendation for machine-actionable DMPs and offers an export of JSON DMPs. DAMAP is open source and to be self deployed.
Data Stewardship Wizard Publicly available online tool for composing smart data management plans
CSC FAIRtracks Plant Genomics Plant Phenomics Plant sciences GDPR compliance Tool info Training
DMP Canvas Generator Questionnaire, which generates a pre-filled a DMP
DMPlanner Semi-automatically generated, searchable catalogue of resources that are relevant to data management plans.
DMPonline Data Management Plans that meet institutional funder requirements.
CSC Plant sciences Training
DMPRoadmap DMP Roadmap is a Data Management Planning tool
DMPTool Build your Data Management Plan Training
easy.DMP Data Management Plan Generator
FAIR Implementation Profile The FIP is a collection of FAIR implementation choices made by a community of practice for each of the FAIR Principles. Project data managemen... Standards/Databases
FIP Wizard FIP Wizard is a toolset to facilitate the capture of data in FAIR Convergence Matrix questionnaire prompting communities to explicitly declare their FAIR Implementation Profiles. These profiles can be then stored and published as nanopublications. Project data managemen...
Research Data Management Organiser Supports the systematic planning, organisation and implementation of research data management throughout the course of a project
Research Management Plan Machine actionable DMPs.
Skip national tools table

Tools and resources tailored to users in different countries.

Tool or resource Description Related pages Registry
DMPonline.be

This instance of DMPonline is provided by the DMPbelgium Consortium. We can help you write and maintain data management plans for your research.

DMPRoadmap
Data Steward Researcher
SIB/Vital-IT Canvas Generator

This is a tool to help scientists generate data management plans for SNSF -unded projects. The Word document produced complies with the SNSF instructions for creating DMPs.

UNIL DMP Online

This instance of DMPonline is provided by the Service des ressources informationnelles et archives (UNIRIS) of the University of Lausanne (UNIL) to help its community of researchers to write a Data Management Plan (DMP).

DMPonline
Czech National Repository

National Repository (NR) is a service provided to the scientific and research communities in the Czech Republic to store their generated research data together with persistent DOI identifier. NR service is currently under the pilot program.

Researcher Data Steward Research Software Engi... Data storage Existing data Identifiers
GFBio Data Management Plan Tool

DMP creation and support by German Federation for Biological Data (GFBio).

RDMO

Research Data Management Organiser.

DMPTuuli

Data management planning tool (Finland).

DMPRoadmap
CSC Researcher Data Steward
DMP OPIDoR

Online questionnaire for the development of data management plans - repository of DMPs.

DMPRoadmap
IFB Researcher Data Steward
Open-science.it

Italian portal dedicated to the field of open science.

Data Steward Researcher
DPMRoadmap @ ELIXIR Luxembourg

This instance of DMPOnline is provided by ELIXIR Luxembourg and has FNR template for Data Management Plan (DMP).

DMPRoadmap
learning.DSW

A training instance of Data Steward Wizard (DSW), which has the FNR and the DPIA templates.

Data Stewardship Wizard
23 Things for Research Data Management tool

Shared reference tool for knowledge on data management.

Human data Compliance monitoring ...
FAIR-Aware

Online tool which helps researchers and data managers assess how much they know about the requirements for making datasets findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) before uploading them into a data repository.

Researcher Compliance monitoring ... Data publication
Handbook for Adequate Natural Data Stewardship

Guidelines on data stewardship and practical toolbox for researchers at Dutch University Medical Centres (UMCs).

Human data Researcher Compliance monitoring ...
DS-Wizard ELIXIR-Norway

DS-Wizard is a tool to aid the creation, organisation and sharing of data management plans. It provides scientists with guidance, facilitating the understanding of the key components of FAIR-oriented Data Stewardship. The template in this instance provides additional guidance on resources, laws and regulations in Norway.

Data Stewardship Wizard
TSD NeLS Marine Metagenomics
EasyDMP

DMP tool from UNINETT Sigma2 (SIKT).

BioData.pt Data Stewardship Wizard

Local instance of Data Stewardship Wizard. You can use this tool to create your own Data Management Plans.

Data Stewardship Wizard
Researcher Data Steward
Ready for BioData Management

Capacity building program in data management for the life sciences to empower researchers and institutions in managing their data more effectively and efficiently.

Data Stewardship Wizard
Researcher
DS-Wizard ELIXIR-SE

Data Stewardship Wizard is a tool to be used when planning for data management, including generating a data management plan (DMP). This instance provides guidance with focus towards Swedish life science researchers, including national resources.

Data Stewardship Wizard
NBIS Data Management Consultation

Free consultation service regarding data management questions in life science research.

Data publication Data sensitivity
DS Wizard ELIXIR Slovenia

Publicly available online tool for composing smart data management plans.

Data Stewardship Wizard
DMPonline

DMPonline is a web-based tool that supports researchers to develop data management and sharing plans. It contains the latest funder templates and best practice guidelines to support users to create good quality DMPs.

DMPRoadmap
Data Steward Researcher
Contributors