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“Plan to make data work for you”
Creating a Data Management Plan (DMP)
Planning ahead for the collection, security, preservation and dissemination of your research data is key to successful data management.
University of Hull researchers requesting Faculty Ethics Committee approval for a new project are normally expected to submit a Data Management Plan, or complete an equivalent section on the application form.
Many research funders specify that a DMP must be submitted with any grant application. They may provide a template, and/or set specific terms and conditions for the preservation and distribution of your data. Check your target funder's data management policy before you start preparing a DMP.University of Hull staff should contact the Research and Innovation Development Team (RIDteam) for expert advice and assistance with idea generation and all aspects of a grant application.
DMPOnline (developed by the UK's Digital Curation Centre) provides a selection of templates, which you can complete online, share with project partners and download for submission.
- Sign In with your institutional credentials (University of Hull).
- The DMPOnline Dashboard allows you to view completed plans which have been shared by other Hull researchers.
- To Create a new plan, provide some brief details about your project
- If you select a funder, you will be directed to a template which is compatible with that funder's requirements.
- If you don't select a funder, you will be directed to the standard UoH template.
The UoH template features 9 sections covering the data lifecycle from collection to preservation. Contextualised guidance for each section is provided in a side panel.
At any stage, you can download the plan to submit or complete offline. A streamlined Word version is also provided here:
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Generic Data Management Plan (Extended)for University of Hull researchers, based on the Digital Curation Centre template. Suitable for use in funded projects if your funder does not provide a template.
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Simplified Data Management Planfor University of Hull researchers whose data does not relate to identifiable human participants, sensitive material or commercial potential. Not suitable for use in most funded projects.
See elsewhere in this guide for an overview of your options for storing and preserving data on University of Hull systems and national/international platforms.
The Further Guidance section signposts advice and training materials from UK and EU research data experts.
Managing Sensitive Data
If you intend to collect from human participants, your Data Management Plan should outline your strategy for complying with data protection regulations and standards. If your data is anonymised effectively it can be made public as a research output from your project, with your participants' consent.
Your plan should demonstrate how you will comply with the relevant principles of the University of Hull Data Protection Policy (Nov 2021).
Personal data shall be:
- collected for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes and not further processed in a manner that is incompatible with those purposes;
- limited to what is necessary in relation to the purposes;
- kept in a form which permits identification of data subjects for no longer than is necessary;
- processed in a manner that ensures appropriate security... including protection against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage.
A privacy notice (also known as a fair processing notice or a data protection statement) must be actively communicated to individuals at the point at which their personal data is collected.
Further reading:
- Data Subjects' Rights under the GDPR: an overview from the University of Hull Data Protection Officer
- The UK Data Service provides detailed guidance and techniques for gaining participants' consent for data sharing, and the anonymisation of quantitative and qualitative data.
- How to Deal with Sensitive Data: a guide to anonymisation, encryption and storage, from the European Commission's OpenAIRE foundation.
- The UK's Medical Research Council Regulatory Support Centre offers a number of useful factsheets and training material for researchers using patient data, including Using information about people in medical research (2017).
- The UK Information Commissioner's Office provides advice about data protection in plain English. Primarily written for individuals, businesses and organisations, but a useful source of reference for key principles.
- Further information about the DPIA process can be found on Sharepoint.
- The UK Information Commissioner's Office has published a useful introduction to DPIAs.
Commercially sensitive data should be managed in accordance with the provider's terms and conditions. If your University of Hull research project has generated data which may lead to commercial opportunities, contact the Commercialisation Team.
Costing research data management
Certain funders encourage researchers to factor research data management into any application, as 'directly incurred' or 'directly allocated' costs. Advice from the Medical Research Council (2020) is equally applicable to other disciplines:
You should include the costs related to your data sharing. This may include people, equipment, infrastructure and tools to manage, store, analyse and provide access to data.
Where the costs of managing legacy data and sharing are substantial, the proposal should differentiate the resources and funding for the following activities:
- Collecting and 'cleaning' new data
- Own research on newly-acquired and legacy data
- Ongoing data curation and preservation [consider whether you will need additional server capacity, offsite storage or backup. An external data repository may charge for membership.]
- Providing access and data sharing [even a free repository may charge for issuing a DOI or unique identifier to facilitate citation. Submitting data files as supplements to a journal article may incur a publication charge.]
Refer to your chosen funder's Guidance for Applicants for further information.
UK Data Service: Costing Data Management
Advice and an activity-based costing tool, designed for social scientists.
