Research Data Management

You may be here because of federal funder requirements to share research data, but there are other good reasons to manage and share research data, including increased visibility for your work, prevention of loss and errors, and making future research possible.

This guide will provide resources for managing your data through all phases of the research data lifecycle.

DMPTool https://dmptool.org is a platform for writing and collaborating on data management plans. Rutgers is affiliated with DMPTool, which allows you to sign on with your netID. It was developed by California Digital Library and contains data management plan templates for many US funding agencies. It also allows you to register your DMP and link it with your ORCiD profile. Publicly shared plans are available on DMPTool, but use with caution! Some may not have been through a quality check. In the future DMPTool will produce machine actionable DMPs.

Data management plans need to outline the kinds and quantities of data you will produce; software and code used to analyze the data; data format and metadata; how you will provide access to your data including data sharing policies; how you will preserve your data; and who will provide oversight of data management tasks. Below are links to data management plan requirements for selected funding agencies.

NSF Data Management Plan guidance

• see links to Divisions and Directorates

NIH Data Sharing site  

• Links to sample Data Management and Sharing Plans

Department of Energy

Institute of Education (Dept. of Education)

• Data Management Plan template

NASA - see links to Divisions on page 5

USDA

• Annotated sample Data Management Plan

USGS

• see links to samples for Centers and Programs