Data management planing is a process of defining and documenting strategy for management of research data in each step of research data lifecycle throughout the research project. The main goal of the process is to create concise and complete documentation which helps all involved stakeholders to avoid unexpected and unnecessary problems before, during and after the end of project. Data management plan also contributes to adoption of best data management practices and as such it is increasingly required by funders with the project proposal.
## Best practices when writing DMP
***Do not copy paste** - Blindly accepting existing content can be error prone and does not help the research team to review current project specific settings.
***Update it regularly** - As the research project progresses, new aspects (infrastructure, partners, data uses, ...) should be reflected in the DMP to allow effective adoption of changes.
***Start in time** - Data management requirements have implications on all downstream processes including negotiations of legal documents and setup of necessary infrastructure.
***Get help** - Collaboration with institutional support services is crucial for correcteness and completeness of the planning.
***Share it** - Communicating data management plan in timely manner to all members of the project, partners and other involved stakeholders contributes to transparency of the planned operations.
## Data management planning at LCSB
There are several options for data management planning:
| [DSW Elixir Luxembourg](https://elixir-lu.ds-wizard.org/) | Instance of [Data Stewardship Wizard](https://ds-wizard.org/) tool facilitating detailed data management planning with overall awareness raising. | Includes guidance on questions, external references. Complex questionnaires with branching logic.<br> Collaborative editing.<br> Comments and TODOs.<br> Multiple sharing and export options. <br> Supports university credentials (via LS Login)| Require user to familiarize themselves with the tool environment. <br> Questionnaire can seem exhaustive. | Choose when you want to responsibly perform and manage very detailed and structured data management plan while raising awareness of all aspects of research data management life cycle. |
| [DMPRoadmap Elixir Luxembourg](https://dmponline.elixir-luxembourg.org/)* | Instance of [DMPRoadmap tool](https://github.com/DMPRoadmap), simple and effective tool for data management plan document compilation. | Includes guidance on questions. <br> Supports versioning and multiple format export.<br> Comments and sharing. | Requires users to sign up. <br> Questions are rather general. | Choose when you need a simpler tool allowing effective sharing and collaboration. |
| Document provided by funder | Funders requiring data management plan usually provide a MS Word document. See example of templates for [FNR](https://storage.fnr.lu/index.php/s/urQOCMeKlgXexZF) or [Horizon Europe](https://enspire.science/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Horizon-Europe-Data-Management-Plan-Template.pdf). | Format of the document is matching the funder requirements | Questions are rather general. <br> Guidance is limited guidance. | Choose if you are performing the planning alone and your project is not complex from data management point of view. |
* Luxembourg Learning Center (LLC) of University of Luxembourg will host an instance of DMPRoadmap in near future.
## References
Pergl, R., Hooft, R., Suchánek, M., Knaisl, V., & Slifka, J. (2019). "Data Stewardship Wizard": A Tool Bringing Together Researchers, Data Stewards, and Data Experts around Data Management Planning. Data Science Journal, 18. [https://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2019-059])https://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2019-059)
ELIXIR (2021) Research Data Management Kit. A deliverable from the EU-funded ELIXIR-CONVERGE project (grant agreement 871075). URL: https://rdmkit.elixir-europe.org
