Data-Management-Templates-Project

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Instructions For Using the Templates

Frequently Asked Questions

FAQ

General

Who is this project for?

This Data Management Templates Project is aimed to anyone create and distribute various types of documents. Our templates can be used for any research projects, large and small, of any disciplines.

Whomever is responsible for data management decisions in the project, will probably be the one interested in using our templates. In many cases this person will be the Principal Investigator with the help of the research team. In large projects it may be a data manager. A grad student in charge of his/her research project may want to use this too.

We have tried to make these templates as general as possible. It is possible that these templates will fit some fields more than others. If you have feedback to give us open an issue or send us an e-mail to ResearchDataServices@oregonstate.edu, we are very interested in hearing whether this is useful for you!

Internal Sharing Template

How do I acknowledge that I am using your templates?

These templates are published under a CC0 license. You are not expected to give attribution, but we will apreciate it if you do. Cite this work as

COMPLETE

Data Management Plan Implementation template

Why do I need an implementation of a Data Management Plan?

Data Management Plans are often submitted with grant proposals. Thus, these plans are written generally, as many details about day to day data management are still not known. Many research groups are also not used to document changes in their data management plan during the research process, so the Data Management Plan becomes less useful.

The goal of this template is both to help research groups make concrete and specific decisions about data management practices, and to make it a living document that can be updated and consulted often.

What if I don’t have a Data Management Plan?

The assumption of this Data Management Plan Implementation Template is that you have a Data Management Plan that you want to implement. This is the case of many research projects because many funding agencies require data management plans to be submitted with grant proposals. But if this is not your case, you can still use this template! We actually really encourage you to do so. Go ahead and start editing!

How do I acknowledge that I am using your templates?

These templates are published under a CC0 license. You are not expected to give attribution, but we will apreciate it if you do.

You can include a line to your Data Management Plan or to the readme of your repository saying “This DMP has been generated using the template developed by Clara Llebot Lorente and Mark Landon, working for Research Data Services at the Oregon State University Library. https://github.com/landonma/Data-Managment-Templates-Project”

Is this a Data Management Plan template?

No, this is a Data Management Plan Implementation template. A Data Management Plan is a document that many funding agencies require be submitted with grant proposals. This template assumes that you already have a Data Management Plan, and that you want to put it into action. This template includes a lot more details than what you want to write in your Data Management Plan.

If you need help to write a Data Management Plan you can:

• Find guidance in DMPTool.org
• Find guidance in DMPonline
• Find guidance at the library of your institution. Many institutions have wonderful guidance in their websites, and librarians that can help you to write a Data Management Plan.
• If you are a researcher of Oregon State University, you can contact Research Data Services at ResearchDataServices@oregonstate.edu

Suggested use of this template

You can take this template and use it as you want. It is published under a CC0 license. However, this is how we think it is most useful:

• Once your grant has been awarded: pass the information from the Data Management Plan submitted with the grant proposal to this template. During this process, make data management practices specific so that they can be useful in the day-to-day in the lab. You can involve other members of the team who weren’t involved in the grant writing process.
• At the beginning of the project: use it to involve other researchers in data management decisions.
• During your project: use it as a reference document to train new researchers that get involved in the research project..
• During the project: use it to document changes in any of the data management practices followed by the group.
• At the end of your research project: use it to document your compliance with funders requirements related to data management.
• At the end of the project: use it to inform the data management plan of your new grant proposal.
• Before, during and after your project: make your research more transparent by making your research data management practices publicly available.

Documentation Readme file.

How do I acknowledge that I am using your templates?

These templates are published under a CC0 license. You are not expected to give attribution, but we will apreciate it if you do. Cite this work as

COMPLETE

Is there a Data Management Plan template?

No, this is a project does not include a Data Management Plan template. A Data Management Plan is a document that many funding agencies require be submitted with grant proposals. The Data Management Plan Implementation template will help you implement a data management plan that you already have.

If you need help to write a Data Management Plan you can:

• Find guidance in DMPTool.org
• Find guidance in DMPonline
• Find guidance at the library of your institution. Many institutions have wonderful guidance in their websites, and librarians that can help you to write a Data Management Plan.
• If you are a researcher of Oregon State University, you can contact Research Data Services at ResearchDataServices@oregonstate.edu

Do I need to use GitHub to use these templates?

No, you do not need to use GitHub. There are a few reasons why we have decided to host these templates GitHub:

• Because you can easily clone/import our templates, edit them, and have a website with your template in it. Having a public Data Management Plan Implementation or other documents in the form of a website will help your research group because it will make your practices transparent, and because everybody in your research group will be able to consult them easily from wherever they are.
• Because it is a tool that many researchers are already familiar with. If you are not one of these researchers, we have created guidelines to help you through the process.
• Because you can edit websites with Markdown. You do not need to know html or other programming languages. Markdown is generally intuitive and easy to learn for most researchers. We have also included a few guidelines for Markdown editing in this template, just in case.

However, there are many reasons why GitHub may not be the right choice for a research project. This template is also accessible as a Word document, a pdf, and a LaTeX document.

Can I use Github without using Github Pages?

Yes! Github Pages allows your documents to appear as webpages but simply hosting Github without pages also works. This maybe a better option if there are concerns about the privacy of your information.

Your templates does not fit very well with my discipline.

These templates are discipline agnostic. It is possible that they won’t fit your research. There are several things you can do:

• These templates are published under a CC0 license, so you can modify them as you wish. Add what is missing, and remove what is not necessary.
• You can let us know! We would love to know how these are useful or not and how they could be improved. Write us an e-mail at ResearchDataServices@oregonstate.edu or open an issue. We may be able to improve the templates in the future.

These templates can be changed as much as you need, so hopefully this will still be somewhat useful to help implement create the documents for your research project.

I have feedback for you.

Excellent! Please open an issue with the feedback or send an e-mail to ResearchDataServices@oregonstate.edu. We appreciate your time doing that!

I need help!

If you need help to use any of these templates you can:

• Find guidance at the library of your institution. Many institutions have wonderful guidance in their websites, and librarians that can help you with data management questions.
• If you are a researcher of Oregon State University, you can contact Research Data Services at ResearchDataServices@oregonstate.edu
• If you can’t find help in your institution and you are not part of Oregon State University you can send us an e-mail. We may be able to help.

In what other formats can I download the Templates?

We have the templates available in markdown, Word, pdf and LaTeX.

I don’t want my documents to be openly available. How can I use this template?

You can still use our template documents for creating your own. You should NOT use Github Pages and should only use Github IF your repository is private.

Will I find these templates useful if I am not from OSU?

We have written these templates as generally as possible so that they are useful to the maximum number of people. However, the guidance documents have been written with Oregon State University in mind, so that they are especially useful for researchers of that institution. If you have suggestions about how to improve the templates or the guidance documents so that they are more broadly useful, please open an issue or send an e-mail to ResearchDataServices@oregonstate.edu