[BOAI] UC News: Online data management planning tool tames data and meets researchers' funding requirements

[Peter Suber]

[Forwarding from the University of California.  --Peter Suber.]


*FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*

University of California Office of the President



Contacts:

*Patricia Cruse*, Director of UC Curation Center

(510) 987-9016

patricia.cruse at ucop.edu

*Andrew Sallans*, Head, Strategic Data Initiatives

University of Virginia Library

(434)243-2180

als9q at virginia.edu





*Online data management planning tool tames data and meets researchers’
funding requirements*

A group of major research institutions is partnering to develop a flexible
online tool to help researchers generate data management plans.  This effort
is in response to demands from funding agencies, such as the National
Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), that
researchers plan for managing their research data.

The partners in this
project<http://www.cdlib.org/uc3/datamanagement/dmpo.html>include the
University
of California Curation Center <http://www.cdlib.org/services/uc3/> (UC3) at
the California Digital Library <http://www.cdlib.org/>, the UCLA
Library<http://www.library.ucla.edu/>,
the UCSD Libraries <http://libraries.ucsd.edu/>, the Smithsonian
Institution<http://www.si.edu/>,
the University of Virginia Library <http://www.lib.virginia.edu/>, the
University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign <http://www.illinois.edu/>,
DataONE<http://www.dataone.org/>,
and the United Kingdom’s Digital Curation Centre (DCC)<http://www.dcc.ac.uk/>.


By joining forces the partners expect to consolidate expertise and reduce
costs in addressing data management needs.  The primary goal of the
partnership is to simplify the process of creating plans while increasing
the quality of decisions made by funders to pre-define policies and
infrastructures that support research activities.   CDL Executive Director,
Laine Farley stated, "This tool will streamline UC faculty's ability to
produce a credible and high-quality plan for managing data.  An important
consequence of that is the general raising of awareness about the services
that libraries provide in data curation."


The tool for generating data management plans (DMP) will be based on DMP
Online, a software tool developed by the DCC and designed to accommodate
different funder requirements; this function will be tested by tailoring it
to the requirements of US research funding agencies and the institutions
they fund.  It will be publicly available, allowing researchers at all
institutions to initiate a data management plan quickly and provide answers
to various data management questions relating to their research, such as how
data will be documented throughout the research project and made available
for public use and potential secondary uses, how data quality will be
assured, data backup procedures, and preservation plans.  The tool will make
the entire process easier, less expensive, and more consistent in moving
research data management forward at the national and international levels.  It
will also aid institutions in identifying associated costs and in future
resource planning.  The new version of the DMP is expected  to be available
within the next several months.


Kevin Ashley, DCC director, stated, "Research is an international activity,
and data management planning is also international in scope. Funders around
the world already require such plans with grant applications or as a
condition of funding; many more are planning to do so. The DCC is pleased to
be part of this work to develop planning tools that also have international
utility and relevance."


In fiscal year 2010, the University of California received more than $498
million in research funds from the
NSF<http://dellweb.bfa.nsf.gov/AwdLst2/default.asp>alone, so the
potential impact of the data management requirements on
researchers is enormous.


James Carey, Professor of Entomology at University of California, Davis
said, “Thanks to […] the UC Curation Center I am confident that the section
in my proposal on data management that we submitted last week will not only
impress the reviewers of our grant proposal (which of course we hope to get
funded), but also enlighten them and the program officers about UC’s
leadership in data management and curation. All of my colleagues from the
other institutions involved in our research program were impressed with (not
to mention jealous of) the help we are receiving form UC3.”

*
*

*About the University of California Curation Center (UC3) at the California
Digital Library*


**UC3 is a creative partnership bringing together the expertise and
resources of the University of California. Together with the UC Libraries we
provide high quality and cost-effective solutions that enable campus
constituencies — museums, libraries, archives, academic departments,
research units, and individual researchers — to have direct control over the
management, curation, and preservation of the information resources
underpinning their scholarly activities.  For more information, visit
http://www.cdlib.org/services/uc3/


<http://www.cdlib.org/services/uc3/>The *UCLA
Library*<http://www.library.ucla.edu/>,
ranked among the top 10 research libraries in the U.S., is a campuswide
network of libraries serving programs of study and research in many fields.
Its collections encompass more than 8 million volumes, as well as archives,
audiovisual materials, corporate reports, government publications,
microforms, technical reports and other scholarly resources. More than
50,000 serial titles are received regularly. The UCLA Library also provides
access to a vast array of digital resources, including reference works,
electronic journals and other full-text titles and images.

The *UC San Diego Libraries <http://libraries.ucsd.edu/>*, ranked among the
top 20 public academic research libraries in the nation, play an integral
role in advancing and supporting the university's research, teaching,
patient care, and public service missions. The nine libraries that comprise
the UCSD Library system provide access to more than 7 million digital and
print volumes, journals, and multimedia materials to meet the knowledge
demands of scholars, students, and members of the public. Each day, more
than 7,300 people stream through one of the university's nine libraries. The
Libraries' vast resources and services are accessed more than 87,500 times
each day via the UCSD Libraries' web site.
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