Data Management Plan Suggested Outline

  1. Project Information
  2. General Data Management Plan Information
  3. Data description
    3.1    Nature of data {generated, observed, experimental information; samples; publications; physical collections; software; models}
    3.2    Scale of data
  4. Existing Data [ If applicable ]
    4.1    Description of existing data relevant to the project
    4.2    Plans for integration with data collection
    4.3    Added value of collection, need to collect/create new data
  5. Audience
    5.1    Potential secondary users
    5.2    Potential scope or scale of use
    5.3    Reasons not to share or reuse
  6. Access and Sharing
    6.1    Plans for depositing in an existing public database
    6.2    Access procedures
    6.3    Embargo periods
    6.4    Access charges
    6.5    Timeframe for access
    6.6    Technical access methods
    6.7    Restrictions on access
  7. Formats
    7.1    Generation and dissemination formats and procedural justification
    7.2    Storage format and archival justification
  8. Metadata and documentation
    8.1    Metadata to be provided
    8.2    Metadata standards used
    8.3    Treatment of field notes, and collection records
    8.4    Planned documentation and supporting materials
    8.5    Quality assurance procedures for metadata and documentation
  9. Data Organization [ if complex ]
    9.1    File organization
    9.2    Naming conventions
  10. Quality Assurance [ if not described in main proposal ]
    10.1  Procedures for ensuring data quality in collections, and expected measurement error
    10.2  Cleaning and editing procedures
    10.3  Validation methods
  11. Storage, backup, replication, and versioning
    11.1  Facilities
    11.2  Methods
    11.3  Procedures
    11.4  Frequency
    11.5  Replication
    11.6  Version management
    11.7  Recovery guarantees
  12. Security
    12.1  Procedural controls
    12.2  Technical Controls
    12.3  Confidentiality concerns
    12.4  Access control rules
    12.5  Restrictions on use
  13. Responsibility
    13.1  Individual or project team role responsible for data management
  14. Budget
    14.1  Cost of preparing data and documentation
    14.2  Cost of permanent archiving
  15. Intellectual Property Rights
    15.1  Entities who hold property rights
    15.2  Types of IP rights in data
    15.3  Protections provided
    15.4  Dispute resolution process
  16. Legal Requirements
    16.1  Provider requirements and plans to meet them
    16.2  Institutional requirements and plans to meet them
  17. Archiving and Preservation
    17.1  Requirements for data destruction, if applicable
    17.2  Procedures for long term preservation
    17.3  Institution responsible for long-term costs of data preservation
    17.4  Succession plans for data should archiving entity go out of existence
  18. Ethics and privacy
    18.1  Informed consent
    18.2  Protection of privacy
    18.3  Other ethical issues
  19. Adherence
    19.1  When will adherence to data management plan be checked or demonstrated?
    19.2  Who is responsible for managing data in the project?
    19.3  Who is responsible for checking adherence to data management plan?