Grant Support: Data Management Plans

DMPTool

• Miami University is a collaborator with DMPtool a website designed to help you write a good data management plan for your project.
• To access the custom templates and other Miami-specific resources in DMPtool, log in with your Miami email address.
• DMPTool contains examples and templates customized for dozens of granting agency programs.  Space is provided for you to compose each section that your funder wants to be included in your plan.  You can save and come back to your work, have an expert review your progress and when you are finished, export your plan in plain text for inclusion in your grant proposal.
• When you write a data management plan, you can also submit it for review before you finalize it to include in your grant application.

What is a Data Management Plan (DMP)?

• A DMP is a document that describes the data you expect to collect or create, how you will describe, analyze and store those data, and when the project is finished, how you will preserve and share the data.  It is best to begin planning for data management early in your research design process.
• Most federal grant applications require a data management plan and have specific requirements for content.  SPARC has a list of different agencies' data sharing requirements.

Why write a DMP?

• Helps you think about how you will manage your data.
• A requirement (that is becoming more competitive) for grant applications.
• Specifies to others exactly what and who is responsible for the data at each step.

What is in a DMP?

• What kinds of data you will be collecting or creating
• Who will have access to the data at each step
• Where the data will be stored and in what formats
• How the data will be processed
• Who will have access to the data
• How and where it will be stored after the project is finished
• How the data will be shared.

DMP Plans sizes depend on the funder and other requirements.  Normally for grant applications, it is an overview and is one to two pages long.

DMP Assistance

•  You can find an excellent primer on Data Management and Plans here - Data Curation Network Education Committee Data Management Primer for Researchers. 
• Our data services staff can assist you by providing information and assistance on data management plan requirements.  Contact us at dataplans@miamioh.edu for more details.

A number of good guides to making Data Management Plans (DMP) exist online from various sources. A few of them are listed below:

New from The Office of Science and Technology Policy(OSTP).  On August 25, 2022, the new OTSP guidance calls for federal agencies to make taxpayer-supported research publicly available immediately, doing away with an optional 12-month embargo. It also requires the data underlying that research to be published. Federal agencies have until December 31, 2025, to institute the guidance.  The full memo and the press release are linked below, along with articles discussing the impact of the proposed change.

OTSP Press Release on new Guidelines

OSTP Full Memorandum