Data Management Plan

Postgraduate Research Project

You and your project

Researcher:
Project title:
Project duration:
Project context:
What is the discipline and subject of your research?

Creating / defining your data

Where does your data come from?
Is it gathered from experiments? From the literature? From interviews?
How about observations or photos?
[You can delete these prompts when youre done if you want]
How will you create / capture the data?
How will observations be recorded?
What equipment will you use?
How often do you get new data?
Continuously or just from discrete activities (e.g. experiments / interviews)?
How many activities per week?
How will this change over time?
How much data do you generate?
Try to state this in kB/MB/GB
How much have you got so far?
How much storage will you need?
Try to estimate how this will grow for the rest of the project
What file formats do you use?
What software is required to access the data? Are free/open alternatives available?
What type of data does each format hold? What is the justification for using the
software?

Looking after your data

What different versions of each data file do you create?
Do you update or add data to existing files?
Do you create additional files during analysis?
What additional information is required to understand each data file?
What would you need to know to reproduce the data? What do others need to know
to understand your data files? Where will this information be held?
Where do you store your data?
Laptop? USB drive? Network storage? In the cloud?
How do you structure and name your folders and files?
How is your data backed up?
How many copies?
Where are they stored?
How often are copies updated?
How will you test whether you can restore from your backups?

Sharing your data

Who owns the data you generate?
Is it you? Your supervisor? The University? An external partner?
Who else has a right to see or use this data?
Collaborators? Group members?
Who else should reasonably have access?
Readers of your published work? The general public?
What should/shouldnt be shared and why?
Are there any data protection or IP issues?

Archiving your data

What should be archived beyond the end of your project?
Everything? Just what you used for your thesis? How will you select data for
retention?
What might others need/want?
2

For how long should it be stored?

AHRC guidelines say 3 years from close of award
When will files be moved into the archive?
As you complete the analysis of each file? When you submit your thesis?
Where will the archive be stored?
Disciplinary repository? Institutional data repository?

Who is responsible for moving data to the archive and maintaining it?
You? Your supervisor? The University?
Who should have access and under what conditions?
Are there any embargoes necessary?

Implementing your plan

Who is responsible for making sure this plan is followed?
You may wish to discuss and agree this with your supervisor
How often will this plan be reviewed and updated?
You may wish to discuss and agree this with your supervisor
What actions have you identified from the rest of this plan?
List them here with timescales
What further information do you need to carry out these actions?
Where can you find this information?
Who might you be able to ask?

Data Management Plan

Notes on completing this form
o Type as much (or as little) as you feel you need to into each box: it will
expand to accommodate what you write;
o You can leave or remove the prompts in grey once youre done;

This template was developed by the Jisc funded Research 360 project team at the
University of Bath http://blogs.bath.ac.uk/research360/about/ and is reused here
under the CC Attribution 3.0 Unported License