The DMPTool will be unavailable, from 5:00-5:30pm (PT) on Thursday February 23, 2012, due to maintenance. We apologize for the inconvenience.

On a previous blogpost, we listed the results of the survey. On the whole, the people who responded to the survey felt that the DMPTool was useful and easy to use. The survey also pointed out a few problems, particularly among the free-text responses we received:

• Several people want to get a document with the questions asked by a funder, or know in advance what questions the funder will ask them. These templates already exist on the Funder Requirements page. It’s clear that people aren’t finding them, either because they’re not prominent enough, or people don’t understand what we’re calling them.
• Several people remarked that the DMPTool is slow. We’re aware of this problem, and are working to fix it.
• Text formatting is getting mangled in the export to RTF format. We’re looking into what’s causing this as well.

In addition to pointing to problems or bugs, several people requested new functionality or features:

• Make it easy for institutions to customize
• Allow multiple users to work on same DMP
• Add support for institutional requirements

The original group of development partners continues to meet and discuss a new phase of development. We are looking for new development partners, particularly those that could devote staff resources for software development. Please contact us if you’re interested! In the meantime, we are thinking about priorities for new features and functionality, and the information provided by the survey responses is invaluable. Thanks to everyone who took the time to respond.

We conducted a user survey in January, and received 70 responses. We held a meeting of the development partners, and discussed the survey results. More about the meeting in a future blogpost. For now, here are the survey results:

1) Were you familiar with data management plans before using the DMPTool?

• Yes: 80%
• No: 20%

2) Do you have a better understanding of data management plans having used the DMPTool?

• Yes: 71%
• No: 29%

3) How easy or difficult was it to use the DMPTool?

• Very easy: 32%
• Easy: 60%
• Difficult: 6%
• Very difficult: 1%

4) Did you use any of these features:

• Links to resources:
  • Yes: 61%
  • No: 39%
• Help for funder question:
  • Yes: 36%
  • No: 64%
• Suggested answer:
  • Yes: 40%
  • No: 60%
• DMP News:
  • Yes: 20%
  • No: 80%
• DMPTool guide:
  • Yes: 55%
  • No: 45%
• Funder requirements:
  • Yes: 67%
  • No: 33%
• Video demo:
  • Yes: 22%
  • No: 78%

5) Further comments. Summarizing the comments:

1. Thanks for providing the DMPTool
2. Improve the speed
3. Add blank templates
4. Formats mangled when exporting a plan
5. Make it easy for institutions to customize
6. Include examples of DMPs
7. Allow multiple users to work on same DMP
8. Add support for institutional requirements

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) requires grant applicants to complete a document entitled “Specifications for Projects that Develop Digital Products” when appropriate. They added a new section, Part III, for data management plans for research projects. Applicants are asked to respond to 11 questions. As the introduction to Part III states:

IMLS encourages sharing of research data. The purpose of this section is to help IMLS understand a grant applicant’s research practices and plans for management of data that would be generated through a proposed research project. If the proposed project activities will generate datasets with the potential for future re-use or repurposing, answer the following questions.

The DMPTool now includes support for the IMLS data management requirements–you’ll see it listed in the dropdown box when you “Create a new plan” after logging in.

The recording and slides from the webinar “Data management plans: tips, tricks and tools” are now available:

• Slides (on SlideShare)
• Recording

This webinar, presented by Carly Strasser and Perry Willett of the California Digital Library, introduces the data management plan as a significant part of any scientific research involving data. It also gives a brief overview of the DMPTool as an important tool for creating data management plans.

We’re beginning the next phase of development, and would greatly welcome any opinions or ideas you have for improving the DMPTool. Please help us by taking a moment to complete our brief, 5-question survey. We will hold a meeting in late January to discuss next steps, and will incorporate survey results into our discussions. The survey is available here:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/LSTV8QL

In addition to the survey, we always welcome direct contact and feedback. Please feel free to contact us at uc3@ucop.edu with questions, comments, or opportunities.

The California Digital Library is offering a webinar on data management plans and the DMPTool. Carly Strasser and Perry Willett of the University of California Curation Center (UC3) will present “Data Management Plans: Tips, Tricks and Tools,” covering best practices for scientific data management, and introduce the DMPTool as an important tool for creating and managing data management plans. The webinar will be offered twice; please join us on one of these days:

• Wed Jan 11, 2:00pm-3:00pm (PST) [Pre-registration required]
• Thur Jan 19, 10:00am-11:00am (PST) [Pre-registration required]

Preregistration is required. Please visit the UC3 webinar page for more information, or contact uc3@ucop.edu with any questions.

Laine Farley and Sherry Lake will present a “Project Briefing” on the DMPTool at the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) Fall 2011 Membership meeting in Arlington VA on Dec 12 at 5:15pm. Laine is the Executive Director of the California Digital Library, and Sherry is the Senior Scientific Data Consultant at the Charles L. Brown Science and Engineering Library of the University of Virginia. The full schedule of presentations at the CNI Fall 2011 Membership meeting can be found on its website:

CNI Fall 2011 Membership meeting schedule

The DMPTool just added support for several NSF directorates and divisions, including:

• Astronomical Sciences division (AST)
• Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences (AGS)
• Chemistry division (CHE)
• Computer and Information Science and Engineering directorate (CISE)
• Education and Human Resources directorate (EHR)

A data management planning workshop will be held as part of the International Digital Curation Conference 2011 in Bristol UK on December 5, 2011. The workshop will highlight two tools for data management planning: the DMP Online, hosted by the Digital Curation Centre (UK), and the DMPTool. Presenters include:

• DMP Online: Martin Donnelly (University of Edinburgh), Sarah Jones (University of
  Glasgow), Adrian Richardson (University of Edinburgh)
• DMPTool: Sherry Lake (University of Virginia), Bill Michener (DataONE at University of New Mexico), Sarah Shreeves (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

The workshop agenda is available on the conference website: http://www.dcc.ac.uk/webfm_send/573

and information on the IDCC11 conference are available at:
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/events/idcc11