Skip to Main Content

Data Management for Research

This guide presents information on the effective management of data created through research — including creating a data management plan for grant or project proposals, preserving data after project completion and sharing data with other researchers.

Introduction

Data Mandates

In order to expand access to results of federally funded research data the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy issued a policy memorandum in February 2013. This memorandum directing Federal agencies with more than $100M in Research and Development expenditures to develop plans to make the published results of federally funded research freely available to the public within one year of publication and requiring researchers to better account for and manage the digital data resulting from federally funded scientific research.

Directive to Expand Public Access

Federal agencies have begun releasing plans that outline the requirements for publicly funded research to be made public. These plans apply to both the publications and the scientific data used in the research. A major component of these plans is the requirement that researchers provide a data management plan as part of a grant application. The data management plan will become one of the criteria by which grants are evaluated.

Oregon State provides links to each agency's Federal Public Access Plan, and updates the list as new ones are released.

National Science Foundation (NSF) Data Management Plan

The National Science Foundation requires a two-page Data Management Plan to be submitted with every grant application.  Researchers are expected to share their primary research data in a timely and efficient manner.  The data management plan should facilitate sharing, and the plan will be considered as part of the overall merit of the grant.

The NSF states that:

"Plans for Data Management and Sharing of the Products of Research. Proposals must include a document of no more than two pages uploaded under “Data Management Plan” in the supplementary documentation section of Research.gov. This supplementary document should describe how the proposal will conform to NSF policy on the dissemination and sharing of research results (see Chapter XI.D.4), and may include:

  1. the types of data, samples, physical collections, software, curriculum materials, and other materials to be produced in the course of the project;
  2. the standards to be used for data and metadata format and content (where existing standards are absent or deemed inadequate, this should be documented along with any proposed solutions or remedies);
  3. policies for access and sharing including provisions for appropriate protection of privacy, confidentiality, security, intellectual property, or other rights or requirements;
  4. policies and provisions for re-use, re-distribution, and the production of derivatives; and
  5. plans for archiving data, samples, and other research products, and for preservation of access to them."

To learn more about NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) visit : https://new.nsf.gov/policies/pappg

Legal and Ethical Considerations

Anyone creating or using data in their research must be aware of and abide by legal and ethical guidelines.

Legal Guidelines

Copyright law governs the expression of data.  See the  Copyright for UMSL Faculty Library Guide for additional information and links.  Although raw data or "facts" are not copyrightable, any arrangement of data within a database, or a selection or expression of data, such as in a table may be copyrighted.

License agreements often govern the use of data. Researchers must ensure that they abide by the terms of use of any data they access.  You can share your own research data under specific licenses.  Creative Commons has a series of licenses, including the extremely open CCZero license which allows the free use of the data for any purpose.

Ethical Guidelines

Data should be collected in an ethical manner, stored securely, and closely reviewed before distribution to avoid the disclosure of confidential information.  

UMSL researchers should comply with the guidelines outlined by the UMSL Institutional Review Board. Health research is also subject to HIPAA rules.

ICPSR has information on maintaining confidentiality and when evaluating a public release version of data, and how to distribute sensitive data under restricted use contracts.