Data Management Planning: How Requirements and Solutions are Beginning to Converge

Abstract

Effective stewardship of data is a critical precursor to making data FAIR. The goal of this paper is to bring an overview of current state of the art of data management and data stewardship planning solutions (DMP). We begin by arguing why data management is an important vehicle supporting adoption and implementation of the FAIR principles, we describe the background, context and historical development, as well as major driving forces, being research initiatives and funders. Then we provide an overview of the current leading DMP tools in the form of a table presenting the key characteristics. Next, we elaborate on emerging common standards for DMPs, especially the topic of machine-actionable DMPs. As sound DMP is not only a precursor of FAIR data stewardship, but also an integral part of it, we discuss its positioning in the emerging FAIR tools ecosystem. Capacity building and training activities are an important ingredient in the whole effort. Although not being the primary goal of this paper, we touch also the topic of research workforce support, as tools can be just as much effective as their users are competent to use them properly. We conclude by discussing the relations of DMP to FAIR principles, as there are other important connections than just being a precursor.

Recommendations for Future Data Management Plans in Earth System Sciences

“…To guide the researcher resp. data manager through the creation of DMP instances, several tools have been developed (Jones et al 2020). DMP tools provide essentially a questionnaire on the data life cycle management plan, and, several different questionnaire (related to the templates) were tailored to specific requirements.…”

Making FAIR Easy with FAIR Tools: From Creolization to Convergence

“…With the increase of data-driven research and the rising importance of digital research objects and other digital artifacts [6], e.g., for the purpose of reuse and reproducibility [7], there is more need than ever for researchers to follow proper data management procedures. Moreover, researchers are increasingly required to provide a Data Management Plan (DMP) that meets the requirements as set out by different funding organizations [8] and serves as an adaptable, guiding document of the data management process during the project. A large number of DMP tools have emerged to assist researchers to create and maintain DMPs.…”

FAIRness Literacy: The Achilles’ Heel of Applying FAIR Principles

“…This holds true for many applications to European Commission calls including H2020 and for some national funding agencies (e.g., French ANR, 5 US NIH, 6 UK Wellcome Trust, 7 Austrian FWF 8 ). However, projects that opt out are still encouraged to submit a FAIR compliant DMP on a voluntary basis (Jones et al 2019). The RDA has several groups working on specifying DMPs, establishing recommendations for their format and building mechanisms to facilitate their creation and use.…”