A webinar on “Data Management Planning and Execution” will be held on on December 15, 2011, hosted by the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) and the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE). More information available on the XSEDE website:
https://www.xsede.org/web/xup/course-calendar/-/training/class/19

Data Management Planning and Execution
December 15, 2011
1 p.m. – 3 p.m. (CT)
J.J. Pickle Research Campus
ROC 1.603
10100 Burnet Rd.
Austin, TX 78758

Audience : This course is designed for researchers, faculty, graduate and undergrad students conducting research that involves generation of digital data.

Description: This course will introduce best practices in data management, both before and after the generation of research data, helping researchers meet the requirements of government funding agencies with regard to data management and open access, improve the efficiency of the research process, and aid the long-term preservation and reuse of digital data. We will briefly describe the resources in XSEDE that are most relevant to the practice of data management, and show how the hierarchy of storage resources common across XSEDE SPs facilitates management of research data.

This course will be webcast and will not include any “hands-on” sessions.

Please submit any questions you may have via the Consulting section of the XSEDE User Portal.

The White House Office of Science and Technology has issued two Requests for Information in the Federal Register on November 4, 2011:

• Request for Information: Public Access to Digital Data Resulting From Federally Funded Scientific Research
  • Comments are due by January 12, 2012.
  • In accordance with Section 103(b)(6) of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 (ACRA; Pub. L. 111-358), this Request for Information (RFI) offers the opportunity for interested individuals and organizations to provide recommendations on approaches for ensuring long-term stewardship and encouraging broad public access to unclassified digital data that result from federally funded scientific research. The public input provided through this Notice will inform deliberations of the National Science and Technology Council’s Interagency Working Group on Digital Data.
  • Specific questions and comments should be directed by e-mail to DigitalData@OSTP.gov
• Request for Information: Public Access to Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Publications Resulting From Federally Funded Research
  • Comments are due by January 2, 2012.
  • In accordance with Section 103(b)(6) of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 (ACRA; Pub. L. 111-358), this Request for Information (RFI) offers the opportunity for interested individuals and organizations to provide recommendations on approaches for ensuring long-term stewardship and broad public access to the peer-reviewed scholarly publications that result from federally funded scientific research. The public input provided through this Notice will inform deliberations of the National Science and Technology Council’s Task Force on Public Access to Scholarly Publications.
  • Specific questions and comments on the should be directed by e-mail to PublicAccess@OSTP.gov

Additional OSTP Public Access Policy Updates are available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/03/08/public-access-policy-update

Additional information about the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) is posted at http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ostp/nstc/about

Additional information about the Office of Science and Technology Policy is posted at
http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ostp/about

The DMPTool now supports the data management requirements of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in Palo Alto CA “seeks to advance environmental conservation and scientific research around the world and improve the quality of life in the San Francisco Bay Area.” The foundation provides grants to researchers at universities, hospitals, non-governmental and non-profit organizations. (It should be noted that they do not accept unsolicited proposals.) Grants from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation have required data management plans since 2008.

The National Endowment for the Humanities now requires data management plans for Digital Humanities Implementation Grants offered through its Office of Digital Humanities. The DMPTool now supports these requirements. You’ll see the NEH Office of Digital Humanities listed as one of the options in the dropdown list when you begin to create a new data management plan. You’ll find links to NEH ODH requirements as well as general help with creating a DMP as part of grant proposal for this program.

There will be a DMPTool workshop at the Digital Library Federation Fall Forum at the Hyatt Regency in Baltimore on November 2. The workshop has three goals:

1. to provide an in-depth look at the DMPTool, providing information to staff at libraries, data centers and IT organizations, who can in turn inform and train faculty members, researchers and administrators at their institutions;
2. to describe the information that institutions can provide to become contributing partners;
3. to discuss future development plans and ideas for priorities, directions and funding opportunities.

More information on the workshop is available on the DLF Fall Forum website. Attendees need to register for the DLF Forum. The workshop is limited to 40 attendees. Forum attendees should “register” for the workshop by adding a comment to the page.

This workshop will be led by participants in the DMPTool project, including Perry Willett (CDL), Günter Waibel (Smithsonian), Sherry Lake (University of Virginia) and Sarah Shreeves (University of Illinois).

We are having a demo of the DMPTool on Wednesday, October 19 at 2pm PT. This demo will introduce the DMPTool and focus on how institutions can provide information for their researchers. Institutions can provide links to resources and services, help with specific questions in data management plans, information about upcoming events or new services related to data management plans. The DMPTool uses Shibboleth for authentication, and institutions can learn how they can participate, so that researchers can log in through their campus authentication service.

Information (participants call for audio, and use web browser to view):
Phone: 1-866-740-1260 (US and Canada)
303-248-0285 (Outside US)
Web conference: http://www.readytalk.com
Access code: 6408974

70% of all PhDs awarded in the state of California for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics are granted by the University of California system.  In fact, the UC system is responsible for training approximately 10,000 graduate researchers and supporting over 6,000 postdoctoral fellows in their research. The amount of data generated by these graduate students and scientists is difficult to estimate, but is surely near the petabyte range (a petabyte is a number starting with 1 and having 15 zeros after it).  Although fledgling scientists receive training in collection methods, instrument use, statistics, and the ethics of science, good data management is not often emphasized.  Without proper data management, these data are at risk of being lost.

The lack of data management training may stem from advisors themselves having poor data literacy, but this situation is likely to change with the implementation of data management plan requirements by NSF.  Principle investigators who head up a laboratory group and are  writing grant proposals are also now responsible for writing data management plans. With the assistance of the DMP Tool, these investigators will be able to construct thoughtful data management plans that can be implemented by themselves and the scientists they train.  The next generation of scientists will then be better equipped to properly document, manage, and archive their own data and those of the scientists they train.

Source for University of California statistics

Government agencies are tightening their belts due to the current economic climate. The National Science Foundation is no exception: their budget for research activities decreased by $150 million in 2011.  The logical assumption is that fewer projects will be funded, and therefore competition for the remaining funds will be fierce.

Many scientists have experienced the frustration of receiving a grant proposal review that is favorable (all “very good” or “excellent” ratings) yet is not funded.  The funding rate for NSF as a whole was at 32% in 2009, with the lowest funding rates in the Engineering and Biological Sciences directorates (25% and 28%, respectively).  Increasingly grants that are funded must be above and beyond good; they must be stellar.

As of January 18 2011, all NSF grant proposals must include a data management plan, or DMP.  This document, much like a Broader Impacts statement, is a supplement to the main body of the 15 page proposal.  Although the DMP is in its early phase of implementation, we can assume that the DMP will garner importance similar to that of the Broader Impacts statement  in awarding grants during these fiscally challenging times.

In 2010, the University of California received almost $500 million in research funds from the National Science Foundation.  This funding is in jeopardy if UC scientists are not cognizant of the importance of a good data management plan in their next NSF proposal. The DMP Tool is meant to help guide scientists in the creation of an excellent data management plan, and should be used in conjunction with talking to your discipline’s librarian about how best to structure your data organization, storage, and archiving.

Aside from the “stick” that NSF is using to encourage data management plans, there is also a “carrot”: researchers will benefit immensely from even a minimal amount of planning for their data management.  The University of California campuses are leaders among universities in receiving research funding from the National Science Foundation. To maintain our position as top-tier research institutions, it is imperative that good data management plans accomany all proposals to the NSF.

Sources:  UC Data , NSF Merit Review Document for FY 2009 , Blog from Today’s Engineer about FY 2012 budget, citing House Resolution 1 

A short video demo of the DMP Tool is now available:
http://www.screencast.com/t/OZmkKlDpy4W

The demo, lasting about 5 minutes, walks through the main features of the DMP Tool.

DataONE will be running demos of the DMP Tool at booth 605 during the Ecological Society of America Meeting,  Aug 8th – 11th, Austin, TX.  If you are there, swing by to learn more about the DMP Tool and DataONE.