Monthly Archives: July 2017

Focus on RDM tools: DMPOnline

The OU offers a range of tools and services which are designed to help researchers plan, manage, work with and share their research data. Over the coming weeks I’m going to focus on a few of these tools and services in these blogposts, including how to access and use them and how they can make your life easier.

This week: DMPOnline

Data Management Plans (DMPs) are often requested by funding bodies when applying for grants, and the University expects all research staff and students working on a project which collects, creates or uses data to have written a DMP, regardless of funder requirements (check out the OU’s Research Data Management Policy). This can be a daunting task, particularly if you’ve never written one before, but using DMPOnline can help you to structure your plan and to easily find the information and guidance you need to answer the questions.

DMPOnline is developed by the Digital Curation Centre (DCC), but has been customised by the OU especially for OU research staff and students. For guidance on how to create an account on DMPOnline, watch this short video.

DMPOnline offers a range of templates for different funders and an institutional template (which is recommended when your research is not funded by an external body, or if your funder doesn’t require a DMP). Each template has guidance associated with the individual questions, written by the DCC, the OU and the funder (if applicable). You can choose to turn the DCC guidance on or off; we recommend that you keep it on because there are lots of useful hints and tips in there.

Once you’ve written your plan you can either share it (with collaborators or with the Library for review) or export it into a range of file types. One of the neat things about the tool is that it will never let you go over the page limit specified by any given funder, so you know that the format you export the plan in will always be compliant.

Why not go and check DMPOnline out for yourself? If you need any help using it, would like us to review your DMP or if you’ve used the tool and would like to give us some feedback about it, send us an email.

 

Come and see us tomorrow in Gass Z101

As part of our Mobile Library Research Support service, tomorrow (20th July) Chris and I will be in Room Z101 in Gass from 10-12.

Please drop by to say hello, try one of our biscuits, find out what the Library Research Support team’s been up to lately and ask us any questions you might have about:

  • Research Data Management
  • Open Access Publishing
  • ORCIDs
  • Open Research Online (ORO)
  • Open Research Data Online (ORDO)
  • Bibliometrics
  • Researcher Profiles/Visibility (e.g. academia.edu and ResearchGate)

We look forward to seeing you then!