RDMC Data Management Guide: Planning for Data Management and Sharing Checklist

This checklist provides useful steps for planning for data management and sharing activities and recommends helpful resources available to researchers at UNC.

This checklist provides useful steps for planning for data management and sharing activities and recommends helpful resources available to researchers at UNC.

 

Introduction

When planning for data management and sharing activities, we recommend starting early and contacting relevant campus partners and compliance units as soon as possible to ensure your proposed activities are feasible and appropriate for your data needs and the requirements of your funding agency’s data sharing policies.

We’ve put together a checklist to help you navigate the planning process and identified helpful resources across UNC to support your data management and sharing needs.

If you have questions, please reach out to us through our Support Portal for help.

 

Checklist 

Funding Agency Data Sharing Requirements

• Review the notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) or program solicitation for any specific data sharing requirements.
• Review your funding agency data management and sharing policy.
• If you are seeking funding from a directorate, division, center or institute, identify any additional data sharing and/or data repository requirements.

 

Follow Funding Agency Data Management and Sharing Plan Template

• Many funding agencies have DMSP templates that describe the requirements of the data sharing policy. We recommend using these templates to ensure you are not missing any required information. Please note that some funding agencies require you to use their templates and will not accept another format.
• (Optional) Use DMP Tool to easily generate your DMSP using the funding agency template format.

 

Request Information from Relevant Campus Units

• If your research requires support from a core facility for data collection, data analysis, and/or data management, please contact the core facility to determine costs, resource needs, and data export and format options.
• If your research requires data security support or large-scale data storage and analysis support, please contact your department ITS and/or UNC Research Computing to account for costs, resource needs, and/or security requirements.
• If your research requires a data use agreement, please review OSP Industry Contracting’s guidance on data use agreements to incorporate the timeline into your project planning.
• If you plan to use UNC Dataverse as your repository for sharing research data, please review our guide: Including UNC Dataverse in your DMSP.
• If you are uncertain of where to start, please contact RDMC Support for assistance.

 

Write the Data Management and Sharing Plan

• Review our guide: Planning for Data Management.
• (Optional) Request a DMSP Review from RDMC. Our staff will review your plan alongside your draft proposal, the funding solicitation, and the data sharing policy to check for completeness, appropriateness, feasibility, and compliance. We provide recommendations and point you to relevant campus resources to support you and your plan.