User Support > NDACAN Contributor Data Management Plan Guidelines

NDACAN Contributor Data Management Plan Guidelines

Designating NDACAN as an Archive for Your Data

Data sharing and data management requirements are becoming more prevalent among research funders. Recently, both the NIH and NSF have added data management planning to their proposal requirements.

Depositing your data with NDACAN can facilitate long-term preservation and provide researchers access to your data for secondary analysis. Research has demonstrated an increased citation rate for publications whose investigators share data (Piwowar, Day, & Fridsma, 2007).

Founded in 1988, NDACAN is a trustworthy repository of child maltreatment data. Our archival staff are familiar with the preservation and dissemination practices particular to child maltreatment data. These include confidentiality, data security, preservation formats, copyright, and current trends in digital archiving, among others.

If you are interested in archiving your data at NDACAN, please contact us at ndacan@cornell.edu to schedule a conference call where we will discuss your proposed research, data, and plan. If it is determined the data fit within the scope of the NDACAN data collection, we may provide a letter of support describing NDACAN’s commitment to archiving the data as described in the proposal. We will also continue to offer data management consultation over the course of your project.

Recommended Elements of a Data Management Plan

The elements for inclusion in a data management plan have not been standardized. For grant writers we provide a template below to create a data management plan with language specific to archiving with NDACAN, including key elements as recommended by the Interagency Working Group on Digital Data.

A particular funding source may have its own guidelines and length limitations.

Template for NDACAN Contributor Data Management Plan

 Data Description.  [Provide a brief description of the digital data you plan to collect including the data type, scale, and collection procedures.]

 Impact. [Discuss the impact of these data within the field and any broad societal impact.] Archiving at NDACAN will facilitate secondary analysis and maximize the value of the data.

 Designated Archive. We have consulted with the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect at Cornell University, and these data as described have been accepted to be archived. NDACAN has demonstrated itself to be a trustworthy repository of child maltreatment data for over 20 years, and will make the data available to the research community for secondary analysis. A letter attesting to NDACAN’s commitment to archive the data is included with the proposal.

 Content and Format. These digital data will be archived at NDACAN in formats congruent with current practices in digital archiving. The documentation and codebook will be preserved in .pdf form, and the data and metadata will be preserved in SPSS, Excel, ASCII, or .pdf form as appropriate. The data may be migrated to new formats as best practices in digital archiving are updated. The data will be distributed in multiple formats (e.g. SPSS, SAS, and Stata) to reduce barriers to analysis.

 Access. NDACAN will make the data available to the research community. Due to the sensitive nature of child maltreatment data, the use will be restricted to licensed researchers with IRB approval for secondary analysis of the data. Any information that could allow participants to be identified will be removed. NDACAN will provide researchers with ongoing user-support.

 Preservation. NDACAN will assure long-term preservation. Data, metadata, and documentation are stored in sustainable formats and are backed up on a secure server.

 Transfer of Responsibility. NDACAN will be available to offer data management consultation over the course of the project. The data will be provided to NDACAN for processing upon completion of the research. NDACAN will collaborate with the contributor about archiving, subject the dataset to rigorous review, process the dataset for preservation and distribution, and create additional documentation (such as a User’s Guide and Codebook) as needed. The data may be embargoed for [insert time period of 0-2 years, preferably no more than 1 year] to allow the principal investigators time to publish before being made available to the research community.

Resources for Creating a Data Management Plan

National Institutes of Health: NIH Data Sharing Policy and Implementation Guidance

National Science Foundation: NSF Dissemination and Sharing of Research Results

Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research: Data Management Plan Guidelines

References

Interagency Working Group on Digital Data. (2009). Harnessing the power of digital data for science and society: Report of the interagency working group on digital data to the committee on science of the national science and technology council. Washington, DC: Retrieved from http://www.nitrd.gov/about/Harnessing_Power_Web.pdf

Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (2009). Guidelines for effective data management plans [webpage]. Ann Arbor, MI: Regents of University of Michigan. Retrieved 1/25/2011 from http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/dmp/index.jsp

Piwowar, H. A., Day, R. S., & Fridsma, D. B. (2007). Sharing detailed research data is associated with increased citation rate. PLoS ONE, 2(3), e308. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0000308