Research Guides: NIH Data Management & Sharing Plan (DMSP) Research Guide: Getting Started

New Proposal Guidance

How to begin:

Read the policy and supplemental guidance from NIH.
Determine your timeline and factor in the needs of possible external collaborators.
Become familiar with the FAIR principles which are central to the new policy.
Assess your project and data management practices. Also consider practices that you currently have or may need to develop.
Review GW data services and consider costs that require budgeting. NIH provides additional guidance on Allowable Costs for Data Management and Sharing

FAIR Principles and Your Data

FAIR Guiding Principles
FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship suggest that scientific data should be: findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable.
Research Data Management Starter Kit
Ensure your data management plan adheres to FAIR principles
How FAIR are your data checklist
Checklist assess FAIRness of research data and identifies measures for improvement.
FAIR Data Self Assessment Tool
Resource created by the Australian Research Data commons to help assess how well a dataset adheres to FAIR principles.
How to make your data FAIR
Resources highlighting European efforts to create an open scholarly communications infrastructure.

This video provides an overview of Research Data Management and the FAIR principles.

DMP Tool

Free online application for creating a DMSP that complies with funder requirements
Includes direct links to funder websites, help text for answering questions, and resources for best practices surrounding data management.
GW is an 'affiliated institution' for the DMPTool; GW users can create a personalized dashboard to see their DMSPs.
To get started:
- Visit DMPTool's website: https://dmptool.org/
- When you click 'sign in', use Option 1 and search for George Washington University
- Log in with your GW UserID/Password
- This will take you to 'My Dashboard' where you can create plans
For more help, consult the DMPTool Quick Start Guide

University of California Curation Center (2020) About: What is the DMPTool.

This video provides a brief introduction on how to use the DMPTool.

NIH DMSP Webinars

These videos from NIH provide a comprehensive overview of the Data Management and Sharing Policy. Part 1 focuses on an overview of the policy and Part 2 provides a more nuanced look at the policy.

NLM Scrubber

NLM Scrubber
The NLM Scrubber is a free clinical text deidentification tool.

Data Management Plan Examples & Templates

The following is a list of data management plan examples & templates:

NIH Common Data Elements Repository

NIH CDE Repository
NIH has endorsed collections of CDEs that meet established criteria. In this resource, NIH-endorsed CDEs are designated with a gold ribbon.

This video provides a brief overview of the NIH Common Date Elements (CDE) repository.

Open Science Framework (OSF) and Your Research

The Open Science Framework (OSF) is a free, open source web application from the Center for Open Science that is designed specifically for research project management. Researcher can use OSF to collaborate, document, archive, share, and register research projects including related materials and data. The system's flexible private/public settings allow research to share their work selectively and to acquire a DOI. OSF integrates with tools such as Google Drive, Box, GitHub, and Zotero making it valuable resource in relation to the NIH DMS Policy.