Funding bodies frequently require their grant-holders to produce a data management plan (DMP), either during the bid-preparation stage or after funding has been secured. The University of Oxford's RDM policy encourages researchers to document their data-related decisions in a data management plan.
DMPonline helps research teams respond to these requirements. A good data management plan helps to form a solid foundation for a research project, providing an opportunity to think through key issues in good time, and to put solutions in place before problems arise.
The tool provides templates based on the requirements of different research funders. There is also a generic template for projects not associated with a particular funder, or where a funder template is not available. You'll be asked a handful of questions at the outset to determine which template is appropriate (e.g. the ESRC template when applying for an ESRC grant). Guidance is then provided to help you complete your data management plan. This guidance comes from research funders, the DCC, and institutions, including the University of Oxford.
The Oxford guidance is designed to flag up local data-related resources and services that may be of use. It is provided by Research Data Oxford, a cross-departmental team which offers support for all aspects of research data management. Further information can be found on the Research Data Oxford website. The Research Data Oxford team are also happy to provide feedback on data management plans, and can offer individual consultations if you'd find it helpful to talk further about your plans for your data.
If you have an account, please sign in and start creating or editing your DMP.
If you do not have a DMPonline account, click 'Create account' on the homepage. Once you have an account, you can link this to your Oxford Single Sign-On credentials.
Please visit the 'Help' page for more guidance.
DMPonline is based on open source code, which is developed by the Digital Curation Centre (DCC). The DCC works closely with research funders and universities to produce a tool that generates active DMPs and caters for the whole lifecycle of a project, from bid-preparation stage through to completion.
The development team are constantly working to improve the user interface and functionality. If you would like to contribute with feedback and suggestions, please contact them by emailing dmponline@dcc.ac.uk.