Data Management Planning
Learn more about support as you plan your research project, including help with data management plans for grant proposals to funding agencies.
Writing a Data Management Plan
Many grant proposals to government and private funders must include a data management plan as part of the application.
The DMP Tool offers guidance for specific funders' data management and sharing requirements. It also includes sample plans and templates for preparing your own data management plan. Use your Emory NetID and password to login at dmptool.org.
Need Help?
Have questions about research data management at Emory to comply with funders' policies? Email dataplans@emory.edu for help.
Components of a data management plan
Your data management plan should address the following areas:
- Roles and responsibilities: Who will be responsible for managing data during the project? How will you and other project investigators enforce any data management policies?
- Data types: How are you producing data? What types of data are you producing? How much data will you produce? Will you use available data (if so, from where)?
- Data and metadata standards: How will you process and organize your data? What file formats will you use? How will you describe the data so that others can understand and use the data in the future?
- Data access and sharing: How will you share your data? Will you embargo any release of data (if so, why and for how long)? If your data are sensitive, how will you prepare the data to protect privacy? Will you release the data with access restrictions (if so, how)?
- Data reuse: Who can reuse the data? How should others reuse data? What credit should others give for data reuse? Can others disseminate the data?
- Data preservation: Which data will you preserve? How long will you preserve the data? Will you use a data repository or archive to preserve your data? What metadata or documentation will go with the data?
Boilerplate Language Library
Emory Facilities and Resources Boilerplate Language Library is a centralized collection of template language describing resources available at Emory for investigators writing grant proposals, progress reports and other documents that need to highlight Emory's institutional research environment.
Help with Planning Your Study
Seek help early to ensure that your research project scope and proposed budget align with available resources. These Emory units can provide you with expert advice on study design and data analysis:
- Biostatistics Collaboration Core: offers comprehensive statistical consultation and computational services to faculty, staff, and students at the Rollins School of Public Health, other divisions of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center, and throughout Emory University.
- Emerson Center for Scientific Computation: provides high-end computational facilities and expertise to the computationally oriented scientific research at Emory.
- Emory Integrated Core Facilities: for help accessing resources from Emory's many core facilities supporting advanced instruments and technologies.
- Office of Information Technology: provides products and services to help researchers collect data, manage research laboratory and specimen data, and analyze significant volumes of data through high performance computing.