Data Management

We can help you with data deposit, writing data management plans, developing a storage plan, and more.

Data Management Plans

A data management plan or DMP, describes how research data will be generated, described, stored, and made accessible. DMPs are often required as part of grant proposals. Most agencies ask for some common elements about data, such as type, format, and amount of data; how it will be described, organized, stored, backed up, archived and made publicly accessible; who will be responsible for taking care of the data; what costs are associated with the management of the data; and are any issues anticipated regarding the reuse of data.

DMP Tool

The DMP Tool helps researchers create data management plans (DMPs).  Log in with your A# and strong password.  The DMP Tool provides templates with agency specific guidance for several federal sponsors.

The DMP Tool allows you to work through the elements of a DMP to document the necessary information for your sponsor.  In addition to instructions, links are provided to the agency's guidance and local resources. When done, you can export your DMP as a Word file or a PDF.  The DMP is saved to your account so you may refer to it in the future.

Typical Components

The DMP Tool provides a general overview on these typical components of a data management plan:

• Types of Data
• File Formats
• Organizing Files
• Metadata: Data Documentation
• Persistent Identifiers
• Security and Storage
• Sharing and Archiving
• Citing Data
• Copyright and Privacy

For more information, check out the DMP Tool Quick Start Guide or look at ASU's DMP LibGuide.

Data Repositories

See THIS GUIDE to agency Public Access Plans and other information for depositing data for most agencies.  Another good resource is SPARC's Data Sharing Requirements by Federal Agency.

USU has a repository, DigitalCommons@USU that can house your datasets.

Repositories Lists:

• PLOS Recommended Repositories
• Scientific Data's list of Recommended Repositories
• re3data: Registry of Data Repositories
• NIH Data Sharing Repositories
• NSF EAR Recommended Repositories (April 2018)
• COPDESS Directory of Repositories (Earth and Space Sciences, Searchable)

Publication Deposit

See CHORUS for information regarding where you need to deposit your publications to be in compliance with your agency's plan. All publications are embargoed for 12 months. Based on this page: https://library.usu.edu/data-management/agency-requirements/publications 

Copyright Agreements

Upon publishing your article, you will complete a Copyright Transfer Agreement, which typically transfers many, if not all, of your article copyright to the publisher. You can retain some of your rights, especially rights that allow you to deposit a version of the article in a repository. These resources may help:

• Letter from USU VPR Letter:  you may include this letter with your manuscript to indicate the research is federally funded and the publication must be made open.
• SPARC Author Addendum:  fill out and attach to any article submission to indicate which rights you wish to retain.

Agency Repositories with Instructions

Several agencies have listed the repositories for publications deposit. In some cases these sites include instructions for depositing manuscripts:

• PubMed Central - How papers get into PMC.
• ERIC - ERIC hosts an online submission page, plus a FAQ for Grantee Requirements.
• Public Access Gateway for Energy and Science (PAGES) - Guidance for authors. 
• NSF-A simple handout on how to deposit NSF funded publications.
• NASA - Training video for PubSpace and Publications FAQ.

Training and Support