Data Management Plans

A data management plan (DMP) documents the envisioned data life cycle for one or more datasets. A DMP describes how the data will be handled from first conception of the project until the data are archived or, if necessary, deleted.
The DMP answers at least the following questions:

• What data are been collected / created?
• Who needs to be informed prior to data collection?
• In what form and where will the data be stored during the different project phases?
• Who can access the data (and when)?
• Who is responsible for the data management during the various project phases?
• What are the legal requirements?
• Will the data be made available to third parties and if so, how?

Some funding organizations require a Data Management Plan (DMP) as part of a grant application or as a deliverable during the project. The DMP then usually needs to comply with certain standards. Such funders include:

• the European Research Council (ERC)
• the European Union (EU)
• most British funders for example Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
• the Wissenschaftsfonds (FWF)
• the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF)
• the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) – depending on the funding line
• the VW fundation

See also data management requirement of the funders.

Various software tools can assist with writing a data management plan (DMP). Examples include DMPonline or DMPTool .
Since November 2019 FAU members can use a local installation of the software tool RDMO.
Instructions for using RDMO (in German) are available in this StudOn course.

The acronym RDMO is short for Research Data Management Organizer. RDMO is a web application for creating data management plans (DMPs). It offers various questionnaires that guide through the process with help of questions and accompanying information as well as examples. The questions try to cover the generic issues that usually arise when dealing with research data and their management.

RDMO has been developed as part of a DFG project by AIP, KIT and FH Potsdam.

After logging in you should either create a new project or ask a manager or owner of an existing project to include you in the project group. To join a project the persons administrating the project need to know your username or your email address.

If you start a new project you will have to choose a title and a description as well as select a questionnaire. The questionnaire determines which topics will be treated in what detail. It is possible to change the chosen questionnaire later, however, this requires reworking some of the answers and some of the work invested in the old questionnaire is lost.

For more information on the different questionnaires please check below.

 

A short video of the RDMO project shows how to start a new project and use a DMP catalogue:

Currently the FAU RDMO installation offers:

• RDMO standard questionnaire, name: RDMO
  This is the basic questionnaire that is provided by the development team of RDMO. It covers all major topics in data management and it quite detailed. Since the questionnaire was not designed with a specific subject or discipline in mind, some aspect are only treated in passing.
  This questionnaire is suitable for planning data management at the start or – ideally – before the start of a project.

• RDMO questionnaire with additional information for the humanities. name: RDMO with information for humanitiesThe questions are almost identical to the questions of standard RDMO catalogue. Some oft the questions will show additional information or examples for the humanities.

• Catalogue for Horizon 2020 projects, Name: Horizon 2020 Catalogue
  This questionnaire follows the guidelines and templates provided by the ERC for H2020 projects. Some additional information and recommendations are provided that are not part of the h2020 questionnaire. However, all questions are taken directly from the official ERC templates. It is therefore recommended to use the English version. You need to change language to English for this.

• A DMP template for DFG project / grant applications, DFG grants
  This DMP collects the DFG requirements / recommendations that are mentioned in application guidelines as well as the discipline-independent “Guidelines for Research Data”. The questionnaire can be used for standard DFG projects and CRC proposals.
  Note: Some disciplines need to take into account further requirements (see the discipline-specific guidelines of DFG). In particular, edition science, (corpus) linguistics, educational sciences, die economic sciences, psychology as well as biodiversity research. Only some of these requirements are currently part of the questionnaire.
  However, there is a growing number of discipline-specific DFG questionnaires. Each has a name of the form DFG grants (DISCIPLINE) and covers the most important DFG requirements for a specific discipline. Please also note the guidelines linked above. These are frequently updated by DFG.

Note that for some disciplines there are tailored DMP tools. For example, one should consider using DataWiz, a tool by the „Leibniz-Zentrum für Psychologische Information und Dokumentation” for projects in psychology and the GFBio DMPT (biodiversity research). In particular, DataWiz addresses the intricacies of psychological research projects in far more detail than RDMO.

First, all participants need to have an RDMO account. Then one of the team members (the so-called owner) has to set up the project. Now additional group members can be added by the owner of the project. The owner needs either the email address or the username of the group members.

The owner can assign a status to each group member. Guests can only read the DMP by not edit it or change the stetting. Authors can write new text and edit answers. Users with manager status have almost the same rights as the owner.  They can create snapshots, modify project information etc., but they cannot delete the project.

• DataWiz, Leibniz-Zentrum für Psychologische Information: The tools is very good for planning data management in psychology. To be honest, it is better suited for psychology and related disciplines the current FAU RDMO installation.
• GFBio DMPT for biodiversity research: The tool can also be useful for related (biological) sciences.
• The Clarin-D Wizard works well for projects that deal with language in a broad sense. It is particularly useful if you already want to use a Clarin data centre for archiving / publishing the project data.
• If the DMP needs to comply with the rules of an Anglo-Saxon funding organization (or the project has Anglo-Saxon partners), the platforms DMPOnline (UK) and DMPTool (USA) will probably be useful.

If you need a tailored DMP template for a large project, you can contact the FAU research data management team for assistance.

A snapshot creates a copy of the current project. The snapshot is frozen, it cannot be edited. But you can reset the project to the exact state of any existing snapshot. This is useful if you want to preserve the current state, for example because you want to document how the planning and state of the data management evolves with time. Or you want to make a substantial change in the DMP and want a mini backup.

Some funders like the ERC (H2020) expect to be presented with a new DMP after each project stage. Snapshots allow preserving the state of the planning while keeping the DMP a “living and changing” object.

Some questions allow for answers like „Not yet“ or „Unclear“. Sometimes RDMO will assign a task as a reminder that there is still something to be done.

Information on data management plans at forschungsdaten.info:

https://www.forschungsdaten.info/themen/planen-und-strukturieren/datenmanagementplan/

RDMO guide of the University Bochum:

https://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/researchdata/rdmo_snapshots.html

The software RDMO on GitHub:

https://github.com/rdmorganiser/rdmo

The RDMO project webpage:

https://rdmorganiser.github.io/