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About the DMPTool

Last updated on April 7, 2023 2 min read BU Resources for NIH Data Management & Sharing - About the DMPTool

The DMPTool is a guide to creating comprehensive data management plans (DMPs) that meet the requirements of dozens of funding agencies. The DMPTool can also serve as a place to save your DMP and work on it with collaborators.

The DMPTool has over 50 partner institutions, including Boston University, and is a service of the University of California Digital Library. For more information about the DMPTool, check out the following video.

Features

The DMPTool is in continuous development but the most notable features are:

Step-by-Step Process

The DMPTool provides step-by-step directions to selecting and writing a data management plan. This is especially useful because the DMPTool has many funder templates and requirements already on file. This allows you to simply select the funder template, type, save, and work through the process. By the end you’ll have your data management plan entirely prepared!

This image shows a screenshot of the DMPTool website with the Template outline and guidance.

Templates

The usefulness of the DMPTool is in the numerous data management plan templates such as:

  • National Institutes of Health (NIH)
  • National Science Foundation (NSF)
  • Department of Energy (DOE)
  • Department of Defense (DOD)
  • (Alfred P) Sloan Foundation

Use these templates to review the requirements for your data management plan and to start writing. The image below shows some of the templates free accessible from the DMPTool.

A screenshot of the Funder templates, showing a table of templates by funder and showing that some funders have sample plans for review.
Published DMPs

Many researchers writing their first data management plan often like to look at a completed DMP before drafting one themselves. Fortunately, the DMPTool has a library of publicly, published data management plans from diverse fields of study. While we don’t guarantee their quality, this is a great place to start.

A screenshot of the DMPTool library of publicly, published data management plans from diverse fields of study.

Institutional Resources

In addition to providing links to funding agency requirements the DMPTool will also allow you to collaborate with institutional resources and to work collaboratively with other researchers.

To get help from us click on the icons in the upper right of your page (from within the DMPTool).

A screen shot featuring two icons circled in red a computer screen with an arrow and a chat icon, which users can select to get help.

Getting Started

Follow these quick steps to get started using the DMPTool.

Visit DMPTool.org and Login

Visit DMPTool.org and click on the login button in the upper right of the page.

A short animation showing a user selecting the log-in option in the upper right of the DMPTool website

Select Boston University

In the drop down, select Boston University.

An animation showing a user selecting boston university from a drop down menu.

Authenticate

Authenticate using your BU credentials.

A screen shot of the BU Kerberos login screen

Start a DMP

Click on “Create New DMP” to start a new data management plan.

An image showing a users DMPTool overview page. A large green button reads "Create New DMP"

Select a Template

Lastly, select a template to get started!

The short animation shows a compuer screen where a user clicks open a category of templates and selects the template relevant to their DMP.

Help

If you have additional questions or issues using the DMPTool or writing your data management plan, please contact us.

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