Data management planning

This page provides links to data management guides and tools developed in Australia and overseas. It is intended for use by researchers, others engaged in research projects and administrators with a responsibility for research and research data management.

ANDS Resources

The ANDS Guide to Data management planning is a basic introduction to the topic.

Australian resources

• The Information Literacy Program of the Australian National University offers training to researchers and post-graduate students on data management planning. The training is based on the very comprehensive ANU Data Management Manual.

• Monash University provides an overview of data management planning and checklists for both researchers and higher degree by research students.

• The University of Melbourne provides a detailed Policy on the Management of Research Data and Records. The purpose of this is to ‘assist departments and individual researchers to fulfill their responsibilities with respect to the storage and retention of data and records associated with, and arising from, their research activities.'

  Their webpage on Research Data Management for researchers provides many more resources such as a data management plan template and examples of plans.

• The University of New South Wales provides a Procedure for Handling Research Material & Data which in turn links to their Research Code of Conduct.

• Griffith University's eResearch Support Services provide a Data Management Support Service. On this page you can find a downloadable draft of their Guidelines for Research Data Management.

• The FNQ regional weed and pest animal Data Management Plan is one application of data management planning in the life sciences.

• The University of Newcastle provides a Research Data and Materials Management Procedure. Underpinning this Procedure are the University's Responsible Conduct of Research Policy and Research Data and Materials Management Policy.

• The PILIN (Persistent Identifier Linking Infrastructure) project has suggestions on Incorporating Persistent Identifiers into Data Management Plans.

• The National Statistical Service has produced material on DATAfitness, which includes information on good data management practice, including understanding and managing metadata, sharing data, and understanding the quality of data.

International Resources

• MIT Libraries Data Management and Publishing includes a data planning checklist, links to other guides and other resources.

• The UK Data Archive provides advice on data management and sharing. ‘This suite of web pages aims to provide data creators, data managers and data curators with best practice strategies and methods for creating, preparing and storing shareable datasets.' They also have a stand-alone publication Managing and Sharing Data available for download.

• The UK Rural Economy and Land Use Programme (RELU) Data Support Service (DSS) provides data management advice to program participants.

• Guide to Social Science Data Preparation and Archiving, (4th ed, 2009) from the International Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) is a comprehensive guide to best practice in the management of data in the social sciences.

• The Environmental Sciences Division of the US Oak Ridge National Laboratory provides the discipline-focused Best Practices for Preparing Environmental Data Sets to Share and Archive.

• The UK Digital Curation Centre (DCC) Data Management Plan Content Checklist is still in draft. It is intended to act ‘as an aide to producing data management plans for submission to funding bodies, rather than an internal action plan to operationalise the stages of data management'.

• The University of Edinburgh's Information Services web site has a set of web pages written as guidance for university researchers on research data management, sharing and preservation.

Feedback

We are keen to get feedback on this page. If you have any comments, constructive criticism, suggestions for improvements or additions, please write to guides@ands.org.au.