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The federal government has increasingly been asked to be more transparent with federal grants, specifically with the availability of grant products such as data and publications.  As a result, each federal funding agency has developed its own policy to address that need. You can look up specific agency requirements to see what is expected and find out what the timeline is for making publications and data available.

Federal agencies are also requiring principal investigators (PIs) to start thinking about how they will manage their data and access to the data even before they are funded. All federal agencies and many foundations require some sort of data management plan to be submitted with the proposal.

The requirements for the data management plans aren’t identical across agencies but most include the following*:

TYPES OF DATA

  • What types of data will you be creating or capturing? (experimental measures, observational or qualitative, model simulation, existing)
  • How will you capture, create and/or process the data? (Identify instruments, software, imaging, etc. used)

CONTEXTUAL DETAILS (METADATA) NEEDED TO MAKE DATA MEANINGFUL TO OTHERS

  • What file formats and naming conventions will you be using? Minimal metadata? Formal metadata schema?

STORAGE, BACKUP AND SECURITY

  • Where and on what media will you store the data? What is your backup plan for the data? How will you manage data security?

PROVISIONS FOR PROTECTION/PRIVACY

  • How are you addressing any ethical or privacy issues? (IRB, HIPAA, IACUC, anonymization of data, etc.)
  • Who will own the copyright or intellectual property rights to the data? (OSU Research Data Policy at osu.edu/ResearchDataPolicy)

POLICIES FOR RE-USE

  • What restrictions need to be placed on re-use of your data?

POLICIES FOR ACCESS AND SHARING

  • What is the process for gaining access to your data? If there will be public access, will you use a repository? If no public access, why not?

PLAN FOR ARCHIVING AND PRESERVATION OF ACCESS

  • What is your long-term plan for preservation and maintenance of the data?

*Basic Components of a Data Management Plan modified from Simplified Data Management Plan by Lamar Soutter Library, University of Massachusetts Medical School (ed.) (2015). New England Collaborative Data Management Curriculum. Retrieved from library.umassmed.edu/necdmc.

 

OSU LIBRARIES SUPPORT SERVICES
Wondering how to make these new obligations easy? The Libraries have people who can help! Whether you want to attend an introductory workshop or schedule one-on-one assistance, consulting with an expert can make this transition easier.
I need a data management plan or data repository.
Contact Amanda Rinehart, rinehart.64@osu.edu
I need to publicly share my articles and other publications.
Contact Maureen Walsh, walsh.260@osu.edu
As an editor, I need to make sure my journal is author-friendly regarding these new requirements.
Contact Melanie Schlosser, schlosser.40@osu.edu
As an author, I want to make sure my publishing agreements allow me to be compliant with these new requirements.
Contact Sandra Enimil, enimil.1@osu.edu
I need help submitting my article to PubMed Central.
Contact Lynda Hartel, hartel.642@osu.edu

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