Online tool helps researchers plan data-management strategy
Stanford researchers, including those at the School of Medicine, now have access to a new tool to help them create a plan for managing their data.
Stanford University Libraries is collaborating in an open-source effort with the California Digital Library, which has developed the Data Management Planning Tool. Anyone with a SUNet ID can access a Stanford-specific version of the tool.
In recent years, major funding agencies, such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, have begun demanding more than a published study to describe research results. They are asking for transparency, preservation and open access to the mountains of raw data that make up a study.
Funders are requiring researchers not only to preserve their data, but to explain in the proposal how they're going to make it accessible. It's a whole new component of the proposal process.
"It can be a daunting task to develop an overall plan for data management for a research group, especially groups that generate large volumes or many different types of data," said Amy Hodge, science data librarian for Stanford Libraries.
By using the DMP Tool, researchers are better able to develop data-management plans that fit their needs and better promote the sharing and reuse of their research data with colleagues at Stanford and beyond. The tool gathers together in one place much of the information a researcher needs to create, edit, export and share a brief data management plan.
Wider dissemination of research data could also help researchers avoid repeating experiments simply because they could not access data from previous experiments performed by other groups.
For information about the DMP Tool, visit http://dataplan.stanford.edu.
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