The National Research Foundation (NRF) and Data Intensive Research Initiative of South Africa (DIRISA) have designed a data management plan (DMP) Template. The DMP template is aligned to the NRF’s Open Access Mandate (2015) and data sharing principles.
What does the NRF say about DMPS?
The NRF describes a data management Plan (DMP) as "a formal document that describes the data you expect to acquire or generate during the course of a research project, how you will manage, describe, analyze, and store those data, and what mechanisms (including digital data storage) you will use at the end of your project to share and preserve your data.
Research data sharing that underlies the findings reported in a journal article/ conference paper/thesis as set out in the NRF Open Access Statement.
The findings reported in a journal article or conference paper should be deposited in accordance with the NRF Open Access Statement. It is acknowledged that some data generated are more sensitive than others. Before initiating the research, it is the grant holders’ responsibility to consider the following: confidentiality, ethics, security and copyright. Possible data sharing challenges should be considered in the DMP with solutions to optimise data sharing.
Researchers should note that publicly funded research data is in the public domain, with free and open access, by default. Collaborators and co-investigators in the research project should be informed by the applicant that due to public funding and funder mandate, one is expected to share research data as openly as possible. The Data Management Plan should indicate which data will be shared. If (some) research data is to be restricted, an appropriate statement in the DMP and subsequent publication should explain why access to data is restricted.
The National Research Foundation has adopted and is given permission to use the DCC
Checklist for Data Management Plan, and this can be used as a guide for developing the DMP."
The NRF has a DMP template you can use. Partnering with the Data Intensive Research Initiative of South Africa (DIRISA), the SA-DMP Tool is a tool that is created to assist users to be able to create Data Management Plans that meet the funder's requirements. The tool has a number of templates in it that have requirements from different funders and institutions. Users are initially asked a few questions to allow the system to create a plan. Guidance is provided that helps the user answer the questions. Get started with SA-DMP Tool here.
See also DIRISA's data deposit tool for data storage.
What do I include in a DMP?
Information contained in a data management plan describes your plan for addressing many aspects of working with data. A DMP need not be lengthy, but it will typically address many relevant aspects of your data, including but not limited to:
Types of data - What is the source of your data? In what formats are your data? Will your data be fixed or will it change over time? How much data will your project produce?
Contextual details (metadata) - How will you document and describe your data?
Storage, backup and security - How and where will you store and secure your data?
Provisions for protection/privacy - What privacy and confidentiality issues must you address?
Policies for re-use - How may other researchers use your data?
Access and sharing - How will you provide access to your data by other researchers? How will others discover your data?
Archiving and providing access - What are your plans for preserving the data and providing long-term access?