Creating a Data Management plan

Data management starts even before data collection when you write a data management plan (DMP). Planning for the care of your data increases the chances that your data will be usable by you and you colleagues in the long run. Additionally, most funding agencies also require DMPs for grant submission.

Generally, DMP’s include:

• Types of data produced (data products)
• Standards used to describe these data (metadata)
• How these data will be accessed in the future (sharing)
• Policies pertaining to the data’s reuse (licensing)
• How you plan to preserve the data (archiving)

For more help writing your DMP or to ensure it complies with your funding agency’s requirements, contact Mara Sedlins.

Other DMP resources:

• DMP language for sharing your data in Dryad:

Data Access and Sharing
Data from this project will be made available with a Creative Commons Zero designation (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0) in Dryad Digital Repository (https://datadryad.org), a non-profit, community-owned data repository hosted by the California Digital Library. MSU is an institutional member of Dryad. All content in Dryad is available for the public to view and download, free of charge, via an online interface, with a permanent digital object identifier (DOI). Data depositors may opt to embargo their content for a limited period of time before it is made public. Dryad ensures that data are discoverable, freely reusable, and citable (https://datadryad.org/stash/our_mission).

Archiving and Preservation of Access
Dryad is built on the University of California Curation Center’s Merritt system, which supports all of the desirable characteristics of a preservation infrastructure, following community best practices. Items are retained indefinitely; data files are replicated with multiple copies in multiple geographic locations and metadata are backed up on a nightly basis; all data files are stored along with a SHA-256 checksum of the file content and regular checks of files against their checksums are made; in case of closure of the repository, reasonable efforts will be made to integrate all content into suitable alternative institutional and/or subject based repositories (see https://datadryad.org/stash/faq).

• DMPTool – includes templates and example DMPs for many funding agencies
  • Generic DMP template based on DMPTool guidelines