DMPOnline is an online tool to enable you to build and edit data management plans (DMPs) according to the requirements stipulated by the major UK and international funders.
To create a DMP using the tool:
- Go to DMPOnline.
- If you're using DMPOnline for the first time, you will need to sign up for a free account. Please use your University of Birmingham email address and select ‘University of Birmingham’ as your organisation when doing so. Once registered, you’ll be able to sign in by clicking on “sign in with your institutional credentials” and using your UoB login details.
- To start a new DMP, click on the “Create plans” tab in the top menu.
- Provide a title for your research project
- Select the primary funder for your project or tick the box “No funder associated with this plan” if you are not submitting your data management to a funder.
- The next page will provide you with an overview of the options available for your DMP template. Project Details covers project administration information, plan overview provides some context for the DMP template as well as an outline of all the questions and sections that you will need to address.
To help you write your DMP, the tool can display guidance on certain topics. You can configure the guidance you will see in the project details tab of your data management plan. If you picked a primary funder in the previous step, the funder’s guidance – if available – will be displayed automatically.
- Start filling your DMP template. You can save a draft any time and return later to complete it.
- You can also set the visibility and share your plan. Your DMP’s visibility is automatically set to private, but you can share the finished plan with every researcher at the University of Birmingham or anyone else.
Three levels of permissions are available for collaborators:
- Co-ownership allows colleagues to edit details and control access
- Editors can contribute content to the plans
- Plans can be shared in read-only mode.
- Once your plan is finished, you can download it in various formats to include it in your grant application or submit it to your funder.
If you have trouble answering certain questions in your DMP, please contact research-data@contacts.bham.ac.uk for help.
Principal Investigators preparing a data management plan for their funders are welcome to contact us to review the DMP and provide feedback before submission.
Additional resources on data management planning
A more detailed University of Birmingham data management plan template (DOCX - 64KB).
A full checklist for a DMP (PDF - 76KB) provided by the Digital Curation Centre.
Example DMPs
The Digital Curation Centre have collected and made available online Data Management Plans for various funders.
DMPs with their visibility set to public can be accessed in DMPOnline by clicking on Reference → Public DMPs in the main menu at the top of the page. Please note that these DMPs have not been vetted for quality, completeness, or adherence to funder guidelines.