Data Management Plans - Overview

The purpose of a data management plan (DMP) is to set up a coherent approach to data issues pertaining to a particular programme of work and act as a living document bringing clarity of roles and scope of data management work undertaken by CEDA Archive to support the data providing project. The data management objectives are to ensure that :

A high quality documented data archive is created.
Appropriate data support is provided to the data users and creators.
Data are made available to users in a timely fashion.
Academic credit for data creation is given.
Conditions of use, access and deposit are clearly stated and do not infringe on the data creators’ rights.
Potentially scientifically valuable data are kept for reuse in the long-term and by other disciplines.
Results can be checked and validated.

In order to fulfil this objective the DMP needs to:

be an agreed record of the data management needs and issues within a programme of work.
define who is responsible for data management activities both within data centres and by the data creators.
list the expected data products that will need management and provide a mechanism for recording/agreeing changes to the final archived products
list the expected data inputs of the programme
lay out the expected timetable and key dates.
list particular issues, such as volume of large volumes or sensitive information
clearly state the conditions of use, access and deposit
briefly describe the context of the programme

The DMP will need be tailored for different types of data and to encompass any unusual aspects of particular datasets. Information may need to be gathered from several sources including the data providers, project PIs and CEDA support staff.

DMPs and the Data Lifecycle

For NERC Grants applicants will submit an Outline Data Management Plan (ODMP) as part of the grant application. If successful details of the grant award will be made available in the DataMAD system and assigned to the most relevant NERC Data Centre. Details of likely data products from the grant award are also recorded within the DataMAD system. From the details in the DataMAD system a draft Data Management Plan (DMP) can then be generated. See DataMAD workflows for further information.

For non-NERC Grant awards ODMPs are not produced, nor details entered into the DataMAD system. In such cases the first point of contact is via the Data Management Helpdesk with subsequent details entered into the JIRA data management tracking tool. Details are use from these entries to produce the required DMP.

The project PI/steering committee will review the initial DMP template

DMP Templates

Outline DMPs are often required to be submitted to project steering committees or planning groups in order to outline the role played by the CEDA Archive in the project. A paragraph/couple of lines covering most or all of the following sections will be needed.

To ensure that all aspects of data management plans are covered, and to reduce unnecessary administrative burden, DMP templates exist to aid production of DMPs. The DataMAD tool will allow production of draft DMPs from available templates for data producing projects from NERC grant awards. For other data obtain a copy of the required DMP template and edit as needed (there is not automated workflow to produce these from JIRA at present).