Data Management Plan Generator

Comprehensive DMPs address: (1) Data types and formats to be collected, (2) Metadata standards and documentation, (3) Storage and backup procedures during research, (4) Data security and privacy protection measures, (5) Roles and responsibilities for data management, (6) Data sharing plans - when, where, how data will be shared, (7) Restrictions on sharing (privacy, proprietary, security), (8) Long-term preservation and archiving (repositories, retention period), (9) Budget for data management activities, (10) Compliance with institutional and funder policies. NSF, NIH, and other funders have specific DMP requirements - tailor to funder guidelines. DMPs are increasingly evaluated as proposal quality indicators.

Use disciplinary repositories when available: GenBank for genetic data, ICPSR for social science, Dryad for general data. General repositories: Zenodo (all fields), Figshare, OSF. Institutional repositories at your university. Choose repositories offering: DOIs for citability, long-term preservation commitment (10+ years), metadata standards, access controls, versioning. Avoid commercial cloud storage (Dropbox, Google Drive) for archival - these are for active research, not preservation. Many funders mandate specific repositories. Archive data within 6-12 months of publication. Include sufficient documentation (codebooks, ReadMe files) so others can understand and reuse your data without contacting you.