Data management planning: Concept for Setting up a Working Group in the NFDI Section Common Infrastructures

Nowadays, it is fairly common that scientific communities are working together in large collaborations at distributed locations,   but only few of them have their data collections subject to rigorous data management. Nevertheless, researchers face the upcoming requirements of the funding agencies regarding  data management. Here, data management planning (DMP) is an opportunity to accompany the generation and processing of data, as well as to generate data management plans, reports, etc. As has been shown in many cases, it is of particular importance for communication and early RDM awareness creation in projects, institutes, etc. Previous surveys have shown that some of the NFDI consortia see the importance of DMP tools to manage information efficiently and have adapted the RDMO software for this purpose. A survey showed that many consortia do not use RDMO yet, but have great interest in the tool. Since several institutions in Germany already use RDMO, it can be recommended by the NFDI as an efficient tool for the planning process of data management.

It also became clear that the topic of DMP must not only be considered on a technical level, but also on a content level, i.e. including templates and (disciplinary) guidelines. . The working group promotes the corresponding coordination processes between the consortia (content and technical aspects), conducts needs analyses in the area of DMPs and develops both content and technical development paths and a sustainable operating model.