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Research Data Management

Research Data Management

Make a plan for your data

Why do I need a Data Management Plan (DMP)?

  • Funding Agencies require it
  • Save time over the long term
  •  Track personnel roles, responsibilities, activity, and support over the life of a project.
  • Prevent upheaval brought about by staffing changes
  • Encourages sharing & preservation
  • Decreases chance of data loss
  • Assist with data queries

In general, a DMP should include:

  • Type(s) of data being collected (size, format, etc.)
  • Plans for documenting your research (including metadata)
  • Plans for data storage
  • Plans for data sharing and preservation

Data Management Plan main components

A Data Management Plan (DMP) contains:

  1. Description of data and metadata
  2. Discussion of security, ethics, and intellectual property
  3. Plans for data access, sharing and reuse
  4. Plans for short-term management and storage
  5. Plans for long-term management, storage, and preservation
  6. Any resources needed or available

Funding agency requirements vary widely so check with the UMB Office of Research & Sponsored Programs https://www.umb.edu/research/orsp/ before starting to write your DMP.

An Overview of data and metadata

Data and metadata considerations:

Include basic information about the data being collected or produced (i.e. brief, general and nontechnical)

  • What types of data will be produced (e.g. experimental, observational, raw or derived, physical collections, models, simulations, curriculum materials, software)
  • How will it be acquired?
  • When and where will the data be acquired?
  • How much data will be acquired?
  • How much data will be processed?

Include information about existing data

  • Will any existing data be used? Include information about its origins
  • What is the relationship between the existing data and data to be collected?

Include information about files, formats, and directories that will be used during data collection, including file naming conventions, software that will be used to gather data, and file formats.

Quality control

Your data management plan should include what will be done during:

  • data collection

  • analysis

  • data processing

Project personnel

  • Who will be responsible for data management DURING the project, and what does that entail?
  • AFTER the project?

Metadata considerations

  • What contextual details are needed to make the data meaningful?
  • How will this metadata be created or captured?
  • When and by whom will the metadata be created or captured?
  • What form will the metadata take (standards) and why?

Security, ethics, & intellectual property

Your Data Management Plan should consider security, intellectual property, and ethical concerns

Security

Note: if your project has specific security needs, please discuss this with the library and the UMB Office of Research and Sponsored Programs

  • Are there ethical/legal obligations for privacy and protection?
  • How will the data be managed to protect privacy?
  • How will the data be stored, paying special attention to security measures?
  • Who will have access to the data, and at what stage of the project?

Intellectual property

  • Who owns the rights to the data created?
  • Will the data set(s) be covered by copyright?
  • If the data set(s) will be covered by copyright, who owns the copyright?
  • How will the data set(s) be licensed? Who can view/ use/ repurpose?
  • If any existing data sets are used, what are their licensing restrictions?

Ethics

  • If you have human subjects have you gone through IRB (Institutional Review Board) approval/ gotten all approvals required?
  • Are there ethical and privacy issues that may prohibit sharing some or all of the data sets?
  • If these issues exist, how will they be resolved?
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