Data management planning

A Data Management Plan (DMP) is a project document which describes the data (or similar evidence) that a project will collect, how it will be stored during the project, how it will be archived at the end of the project and how access will be granted (where appropriate). 

At the start of a project, you should consider what evidence you will be collecting as part of your research. You will need to plan how you will look after data during the project and consider what you want to share once the project is complete. The information included in this section of the website should help you to complete your Data Management Plan:

 

Defining your data

Before writing a Data Management Plan it is important to take time to define what data you will be working with. 

Research data are collected, observed or created, for the purposes of analysis to produce and validate original research results.

Research data are defined as the evidence on which academic researchers build their analytic or other work

HEFCE 2008

Data can take many forms

  • Still images, video and audio
  • Survey results and interview transcripts
  • Experimental observations
  • Text corpuses
  • Notebooks and lab books
  • Models and software
  • Can be created in a digital form
  • Can be analogue that is converted to a digital form

For some researchers working in the Arts and Humanities, it can be challenging to define what research data are; please see our guidance on Arts and Humanities data.

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Writing a Data Management Plan

The OU's Research Data Management Policy mandates the creation of a Data Management Plan (DMP) for all research and scholarship projects. 

Data Management Plans are not required for Impact evidence, knowledge exchange or PPIE activites.  

Data Management Plans for research projects

OU Templates

We provide 2 templates for writing a Data Management Plan for research projects. Please look at the options below before choosing the appropriate one for you:

Externally funded research

Most research funders now require that research bids incorporate a DMP and that the research data produced as a result of publicly-funded research are openly available. Each funder has developed its own policy in line with its own disciplinary focus and strategy. If your research is externally funded, you will be expected to comply with your funder's policy. Please refer to your funder's terms and conditions for details of what your Data Management Plan should contain. Data Management Plans for funded projects can be sent to the Library Research Support team for review. 

DMP Online Data Management Planning tool

DMPOnline is a web-based tool which guides you step-by-step through the process of writing a DMP. This has been developed by the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) to assist researchers and research support staff to produce DMPs. This tool is especially useful for those writing external funding bids, as there are templates available for all the major UK research funders.

Examples

Following the launch of the updated Research Data Management Policy in December 2024, research staff and postgraduate researchers are required to upload a copy of their data management plans to ORDO. This growing bank of DMPs is searchable; if you are unsure how to conduct a search for them, please get in touch. 

Uploading your Data Management Plan to ORDO

Data Management Plans must be uploaded to Open Research Data Online (ORDO) (and either shared publicly, or placed under embargo with a 'request access' option) prior to data collection. Please see our instructions for uploading a DMP to ORDO for guidance on how to do this.

Training

We run a training session on writing DMPs twice a year, to find previous recordings and details of forthcoming sessions please see our training pages.

Assistance

We offer a review service for Data Management Plans, offering feedback and advice on how to improve your plan, or help if you're struggling to get started.

If any of the following applies, please send your DMP for review:

  • You are working with special category data
  • You need to share data with external collaborators during your project
  • You are conducting fieldwork to collect data
  • You are using data belonging to an external organisation (e.g. business/government/charity)
  • You are expecting to generate a large dataset (over 25GB)

Please aim to send any requests to the team with at least one week's notice so that we have plenty of time to review and make changes.

Data Management Plans for scholarship projects

OU Template

If you are conducting a scholarship project, you should follow the data management guidance for scholarship and DMP template for scholarship (Word, 99KB). Please see the scholarship intranet pages for full details.

Examples

Following the launch of the updated Research Data Management Policy in December 2024, research staff and postgraduate researchers are required to upload a copy of their data management plans to the Scholarship Exchange and make them internally available to other OU staff. This growing bank of DMPs is searchable. If you are unsure how to conduct a search for them, please get in touch. 

Uploading your DMP to the Scholarship Exchange

Data Management Plans must be uploaded to the Scholarship Exchange prior to data collection. These should be shared internally. Please email your plan to the Library Research Support team, and we will upload it to the Scholarship Exchange on your behalf.

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Ethics and Data Protection

Before starting data collection, it is important to ensure that you have all ethical and legal safeguards in place, to both work with the data and to preserve and share it for the long term.

Obtaining research data from human participants places ethical and legal obligations on researchers. The need to respect confidentiality and privacy can seem to conflict with funders' expectations that data will be shared wherever possible, but with careful planning, it may be possible to share research data from human participants. A combination of gaining consent for sharing, de-identifying or anonymising personal data, and controlling access, can ensure long-term access to sensitive data.

  • When giving consent, participants need to understand and give explicit permission for possible future uses of their data. This should include details of any anonymisation, the extent of planned sharing, future data storage and conditions of access.
  • Data must be handled and stored with particular care when they contain personal or sensitive information; see the advice on this site for safeguarding research data.
  • Careful anonymisation can ensure that meaning within the data is not lost. There is good advice and guidance from the specialist sites listed below.
  • Controlled access enables sharing data with bona fide researchers without anonymisation compromising meaning in the research data.

Relevant to these issues is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came in to force across Europe on 25th May 2018. Replacing the UK Data Protection Act 1998, GDPR strengthens the rights of research participants with regard to their personal data.

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Research Data Management Handbook

Our Research Data Management Handbook is intended for use at the beginning of a project, particularly when working in a team to help researchers to create and record processes for data storage, management, preservation and sharing.

Download the RDM Handbook (Microsoft Word).

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Contact us

Library Research Support team