Data Management & Sharing

A data management plan is a document describing analog or digital data and includes details about how these materials will be organized, preserved, and shared and which procedures are needed to access and use them.

Data management plans can help you:

• Comply with the federal agencies requirements: 2023 NIH DMS policy and NSF Public Access policy . MD Anderson personnel can find additional support and resources for complying with the NIH Data Management & Sharing Policy .
• Describe how data will be maintained and what resources will be needed to preserve it.
• Identify data stewards who will be responsible throughout the life of the data.
• Have well-described and organized data when posting a supplemental dataset with your publication.
• Prepare data for review before and/or after the article is accepted for publication, as required by some publishers, e.g. Nature and Science .
• Facilitate re-use of data sets, open access, and data sharing.

Resources:

• Self-Audit Checklist [INTERNAL LINK] from the Research Integrity Group.
• MD Anderson NIH DMS Plan template [INTERNAL LINK] from the Office of Sponsored Programs.
• Sample Data Sharing Plan from the NIH.
• Elements to Include in a Data Management & Sharing Plan Under NIH Extramural Support, Dec. 30, 2009.
• Types of data and data standards - File formats from the UK Data Archive .
• Standards for documenting your data in the RDA Metadata Standards Catalog and FAIRsharing Standards.