Important information for OHIO researchers about Data Management Plans

‘Tis the season for federal funders to mandate Data Management Plans (DMPs) for grant submissions. The National Institute of Health (NIH) will begin requiring all submitted grants to have an accompanying DMP on January 25th, 2023. The NIH isn’t the only one. Currently, the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and many others have required DMPs as part of their funding process and expectations.

Additionally, as of August 2022, the Office of Science and Technology (OST) released the “Nelson Memo,” which will require all federal agencies to make data from funded research publicly accessible at the time of publication.

Ohio University’s Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, the Office of Information Technology (OIT), and University Libraries are currently working together to build support services and documentation to help, and will release more information at a later date.

In the meantime, the Research Data Management Guide provides helpful contextual information, guideline documents, and suggested data platforms. In the guide, there is documentation from OIT on properly securing data, DMP templates and guidelines, the 2022 Research Development Lunch & Learn: Introduction to Data Management recording via Microsoft Stream and more.

For Ohio University researchers, this means the way research data is gathered, stored, shared and maintained throughout the research process is important and must be documented to be funded and published. A DMP describes the data, how the data will be treated during the project, and what happens with the data when the project ends and beyond. A DMP can be thought of as both a required document for grants and a living document for the research planning process. 

For questions, reach out to Hanna Schmillen, Ohio University Libraries, at schmille@ohio.edu.