When you log in to DMPonline, you'll be taken to the 'My Dashboard' page. From here you can edit, share, download, copy, or remove any of your plans. You'll also see plans that have been shared with you by others.
The Research Data Oxford team are happy to provide feedback on data management plans. Once you have a complete draft, please download a copy as a Word document (see 'Download plans' below), and email it to researchdata@ox.ac.uk. This will enable us to direct your plan to the member of the team best equipped to comment on it.
Please let us know if there is a specific deadline you need to meet. It is helpful if you can allow at least a week for us to provide feedback (though we'll do our best to respond more quickly in urgent cases).
Click the 'Create plan' button on the 'My Dashboard' page or the top menu. Select the relevant options from the menus and tick boxes: this will determine which template is used, and thus which questions and guidance you'll be presented with. Confirm your selection by clicking 'Create plan'.
The tabbed interface allows you to navigate through different functions when editing your plan.
This section allows you to add basic administrative detail about your research project. You can also select which institution-specific guidance you would like to see: you can choose up to six organisations.
Here you can list contributors to the project. You're able to add their email, affiliation and ORCID ID. You can also select roles for each contributor: hovering over the tick box for each role will provide a description of the role.
Note that contributors listed in this section will not automatically be given access to your data management plan - for that, see the 'Share plans' section below.
This section tells you which template your plan is based on, and gives an overview of the questions that you will be asked.
For funder templates, the information here is usually the guidance provided by the funding body. It's worth checking for any specific requirements such as length limits.
The following tab(s) present the questions you need to answer: this is where you enter the main content of your data management plan. You may see a single 'Write plan' tab, or there may be more than one tab if your funder asks different sets of questions at different stages (e.g. at grant application and post-award).
The questions you see will reflect the template selected. For most templates, they are divided into sections: clicking a section will expand it, allowing you to view and answer the questions. Some basic formatting options are provided.
Guidance is displayed in the right-hand panel. If you need more guidance or find there is too much, you can make adjustments on the 'Project details' tab.
Also in the right-hand panel is a space for comments. These won't appear in the downloaded version of your plan: you can use this space to note any points that need to be followed up, or to share queries with your collaborators.
This section is optional. It forms an addendum to your main data management plan, and is not typically required by funders who ask for a DMP. Instead, it is designed to help you with finer-grained planning regarding each output from your project. You may not have full details of all planned research outputs when you compile your initial plan, so it may be more appropriate to complete this section as your project progresses.
Using this feature, you can:
Fields such as repositories, metadata, and licences are machine actionable, while fields such as data type follow glossaries in established RDM resources such as DataCite and the RDA metadata.
The information provided here may be used to help research support staff gauge what sort of data is generated by Oxford researchers, which in turn may help inform future data management service provision.
Add the email addresses of any collaborators you would like to invite to read or edit your plan. Set the permissions level you would like to grant them via the radio buttons, and click 'Add collaborator'. If you add a collaborator who does not already have a DMPonline account, they will be invited to create one.
You can adjust permissions or remove collaborators at any time via the drop-down options.
The 'Share' tab is also where you can set your plan's visibility.
By default all new and test plans will be set to 'Private' visibility. 'Public' and 'Organisational' visibility are intended for finished plans. You must answer at least 50% of the questions to enable these options.
From here you can download your plan in various file formats. This may be useful if you need to submit your plan as part of a grant application, or wish to ask for feedback. For PDF files, you can also adjust the formatting (font type, size, and margins), which may be helpful if you are working to page limits.
Below the list of your own plans, you'll find a table of plans submitted by others at Oxford and shared within the organisation. These can provide useful examples of DMPs using various funder templates, written to accommodate both funder-specific and University policies. However, please be aware that these plans have not been vetted for quality or completeness.
In addition, the 'Reference' drop down tab at the top of the page has a section for public DMPs from other institutions, providing further examples. The page on funder requirements offers guidance on the DCC templates for each funder.