Category Archives: General

With all successful pursuits comes governance…

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Following two years of collaboration and development of the DMPTool, it now seems the appropriate time to address the lingering questions of “who’s in charge of this thing?” and “what does it mean to be a Partner?”.  The DMPTool team is pleased to now introduce a formal collaboration agreement and set of operating principles to guide the continued efforts, enable broader community engagement, and facilitate collaboration with the data management community.  This seemed like a smart and necessary move as the service has seen users from over 650 institutions and continues to gain interest and diversity in application.  Additionally, this structure will dovetail nicely with the advisory organizations and community-building activities made possible through our current Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and IMLS grants.

Here are the highlights:

  • A DMPTool Steering Group will coordinate all technical, content, and community development activities.  This group will be comprised of DMPTool Partners who have made significant contributions to the DMPTool community and are eager to help guide it’s future.
  • DMPTool Partners will now be defined as institutions, corporations, individuals, or other groups who have signed the collaboration agreement, made the commitment to use the DMPTool technical and content framework via an authenticated connection, and contribute to the community in some other way as well.  We will be working to enroll institutions currently using the DMPTool over the course of the next month.
  • In the interest of building a stronger and more cohesive community, we will now accept new Partners via the following process:
    1. Express interest to the DMPTool Steering Group by writing uc3@ucop.edu.
    2. Sign the Collaboration Agreement and Memorandum of Understanding.
    3. Establish institutional authentication with the DMPTool.

While the Collaboration Agreement and Memorandum of Understanding is NOT a contract, it does serve as a set of common operating principles for the growth and operation of this service and community effort.  Until DMPTool2 is released, we will house the governance process information on the DMPTool BitBucket wiki pages here:  https://bitbucket.org/dmptool/main/wiki/Governance 

We hope that this new structure provides the community with a clear path for decision-making, opportunities for integration with other software and systems, and quite simply, a better-defined entity to affiliate with in order to build community.

The DMPTool team looks forward to your involvement!

-Andrew Sallans & Patricia Cruse, Co-Conveners of the DMPTool Steering Group

 

DMPTool2 Project – March 2013 Report

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Overview

The project team held an initial kick-off meeting on February 20/21 in Berkeley, CA, to realign all team members and other participants around the current status of the DMPTool and new objectives supported through the grant.  Following the kick-off meeting, the team has begun weekly conference call meetings and developed specific project deadlines and goals.  A complete meeting report was prepared.

Technical Team

The initial focus has been on posting of application developer positions, interviewing and hiring, and review of proposed technical specifications.  One developer is scheduled to start work on 4/1, and additional interviews are finishing up for the second position.  Technical specifications are being reviewed and updated and plans are underway for moving forward with use cases and wireframes.

Communications/Outreach Team

This team has focused thus far on filling the 50% roles for the Sloan and IMLS grants and recruiting and preparing advisory boards.  The IMLS outreach coordinator has been hired and the Sloan outreach coordinator position is still being processed by UIUC.  Both the Researcher and Administrative advisory boards are nearly full and initial meetings are presently being planned.  Additionally, Facebook and Twitter presences have been established and are gaining followers.

The process of implementing the proposed governance structure has begun, and originating institutions are now signing the official Collaboration Agreement document.  We will then begin enrolling institutions that have setup institutional authentication, and then we will shift into public enrollment of new “Partners”.

Metrics

We have not yet fully settled on metrics for use in evaluating 1) project success or 2) impact of the new DMPTool.  We have an extensive list produced at the kick-off meeting, but are still sorting and determining best choices.  We plan to gather feedback from the advisory boards on this topic as well.

Overall Project

We remain generally on track to finish within 12 months, considering the startup delay from receiving and processing awards at the main institutions.   Once our key hires of application developers and community engagement/outreach coordinator are settled, we should proceed more smoothly.   We continue to get inquiries into new collaboration and integration opportunities, and remain aware of new developments with funders (ie. February OSTP mandate).  Recent opportunities include integration with Columbia’s IEDADATA DMPTool, VIVO, and eagle-i.

 

-Andrew Sallans, University of Virginia Library, DMPTool2 Project Manager

Summer DMPTool Internship Opportunity – Apply Now!

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As part of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation sponsored DMPTool2 project, the University of Virginia Library will host a summer MLIS intern for 10 weeks (specific period is negotiable), 40 hrs/wk, at $15/hr. Intern may be able to earn credit hours, subject to approvals by their school and the supervisor (see example at Indiana SLIS:  http://www.slis.indiana.edu/courses/internship/index.php). The intern will work day-to-day with the grant project manager, Andrew Sallans, and will be responsible for providing support in all active and relevant task areas during the internship period. The internship is intended to provide a mid-project effort boost and to offer a MLIS student real-world experience in working on a complex project to develop software and services for research data management support.   Candidates will be expected to be on-site at the University of Virginia Library in Charlottesville, VA, for the duration of this internship.  Must apply by March 24, 2013 to Andrew Sallans (als9q@virginia.edu) at the University of Virginia Library, providing a CV and cover letter indicating why this project is of interest and how this experience will be of value to future career prospects.

Positions available: DMPTool software engineer

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As part of the project funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, we’re hiring two software engineers for a one-year development project to enhance the DMPTool, to be based at the California Digital Library office in Oakland CA. A full job description is available at the UC Office of the President Job Search Site.

The DMPTool is a widely used service that supports researchers in creating data management plans as required by various governmental and private funding agencies. The development project will augment the existing tool with a number of new functions and features. Reporting to the DMPTool project manager, the incumbent will be responsible for refining functional requirements, UI designs, and technical specifications; implementation of those specifications; testing and documenting the resulting codebase; and deployment of the operational system in a production environment. UC3 employs an agile development methodology relying on iterative code prototyping, assessment, and refinement.

The DMPTool is a Ruby on Rails web application with a MySQL backend database and is integrated with LDAP- and Shibbolith-based authentication. It is deployed in a SLES/SUSE Linux VM environment. Candidates will have demonstrated experience and expertise in these and related web technologies, as well as in general software development methodologies and best practices.

The UC Curation Center at the California Digital Library (CDL), an administrative unit of the UC Office of the President (UCOP). UC3, one of the world’s premier digital curation programs, is a creative partnership between the CDL, the ten UC campuses, and the international curation community, providing innovative services and solutions to ensure the long-term usability of the University’s digital content.

More information is available at the UCOP Job Search Site. The closing date for this position announcement is Feb 14, 2013.

DMPTool Partners Awarded Funding for Enhancement

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We are pleased to announce that DMPTool partners were awarded a $590,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to fund further development of the DMPTool.  The grant will be used to fund improvements to the DMPTool including expanded functionality, training modules, documentation and the creation of an open-source community to sustain the DMPTool in the future.

Project partners are the UC Curation Center (UC3) at the California Digital Library, the University of Virginia Library, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, and DataONE. The grant activity will occur in 2013.

Datasets are the currency of scientific and intellectual advancement. Despite this reality, most researchers are not aware of how best to manage their data. The DMPTool, launched in October 2011, is a freely available web application that addresses this need by guiding users through the process of creating a data management plan for a range of funders.

The current version of the DMPTool provides an easy to use interface that:

  • Helps users create data management plans for specific funding agencies
  • Provides step-by-step instructions and guidance for how to manage data
  • Provides information about resources and services available to researchers to help fulfill data management requirements.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation funding will support a second version, DMPTool2, that will:

  • Promote the practice of data management, sharing, and preservation, emphasizing the utility of best practices beyond meeting funder requirements
  • Enable institutions to easily shape and exploit the DMPTool to meet local need
  • Foster the emergence of an engaged open source community of DMPTool users and developers
  • Maintain transparency in all project activities to facilitate community involvement
  • Increase the depth and breadth of the tool’s coverage for funder and institutional data management requirements
  • Enable collaboration and connect stakeholders to each other and institutional resources, including services, expertise and guidance
  • Provide support for the full data management life cycle, including provision for collaborative plan authorship, and review and reporting by institutional administrators

For questions about the DMPTool or DMPTool2, contact Service Manager Perry Willett at perry.willett@ucop.edu.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a philanthropic, not-for-profit grant-making institution based in New York City. Established in 1934 by Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr., then-President and Chief Executive Officer of the General Motors Corporation, the Foundation makes grants in support of original research and education in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and economic performance: www.sloan.org

Download of PDF of this press release: DMPT2_PressRelease_2013-01-14

DMPTool unavailable for several hours, Saturday Jan 12 and Sunday Jan 13

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Due to system maintenance, the DMPTool will be unavailable for periods on Saturday January 12 2013 and Sunday January 13 2013.

  • Saturday January 12 2013, 10:00am to 2:00pm PST (18:00 to 22:00 UTC)
  • Sunday January 13, 2013, 1:00pm to 4:00pm PST (21:00 to 23:59 UTC)

During this time, the website will be unavailable and access to data management plans will be blocked.

This maintenance window is necessary to upgrade core infrastructure in the California Digital Library’s production data center. It is possible that service to the DMPTool will be restored before the scheduled end of the outage, but this cannot be guaranteed.

Please contact us at uc3@ucop.edu with any questions or concerns. We apologize for the inconvenience.

New article in International Journal of Digital Curation

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The DMPTool and DMPOnline teams are pleased to announce a new article outlining the visions, strategies, and future developments for the respective projects.  Access it here:  http://www.ijdc.net/index.php/ijdc/article/view/225

Citation:   Sallans, A., Donnelly, M. (2012). DMP Online and DMPTool: Different Strategies Towards a Shared Goal. International Journal of Digital Curation, 7(2), 123–129.

Abstract:

This paper provides a comparative discussion of the strategies employed in the UK’s DMP Online tool and the US’s DMPTool, both designed to provide a structured environment for research data management planning (DMP) with explicit links to funder requirements. Following the Sixth International Digital Curation Conference, held in Chicago in December 2010, a number of US institutions partnered with the Digital Curation Centre’s DMP Online team to learn from their experiences while developing a US counterpart. DMPTool arrived in beta in August 2011 and released a production version in November 2011. This joint paper will compare and contrast use cases, organizational and national/cultural characteristics that have influenced the development decisions, outcomes achieved so far, and planned future developments.

 

 

 

DMPTool Demo at AGU 2012

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If you are headed to the AGU meeting next week, consider attending the “Data Management 101 for the Early Career Scientist” workshop being run by ESIP. In addition to getting lots of great information on how best to manage your data, Amber Budden from DataONE will be demoing the DMPTool.

When: Tuesday December 4th, 12:20-1:40 PM
Where: Marriott Marquis, Salons 5-6, San Francisco

Abstract:
Don’t let the changing face of science leave you behind. The proliferation of data from all sources requires today’s scientists to be knowledgeable about sound data management practices. In this free workshop, everything the modern data-producing scientist needs to know about data management will be introduced. We will discuss the rationale for data management, provide an overview for managing science data and demonstrate use of two popular data management planning tools from IEDA and DataONE. This workshop is open to all AGU attendees. Students and early careers scientists are especially encouraged to attend. For details on the outline and for links to all of our Data Management Short Course modules see: http://esipfed.org/AGUDataManagement101

New funder: Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative

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The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) studies the effects of oil and dispersant on the ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico, and offers research grants to scientists to study the environmental impacts and public health implications of petroleum pollution. As part of these grants, GoMRI requires researchers to provide data management plans. The DMPTool now supports GoMRI’s data management requirements–you’ll see the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative included in the dropdown list of funders when you log in. As part of this initiative, GoMRI is creating a research database where scientists can deposit their data, called the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Information and Data Cooperative (GRIIDC). As they state:

Scientists and researchers of GoMRI are encouraged to submit their data onto recognized national data centers. However, if one cannot be identified, GRIIDC will host these data for long-term archival and to facilitate data discovery.

They will also provide other services, such as generating DOIs and maintaining a data registry.