The OXFORD DMPonline Project
Funders require researchers to submit data management plans (DMPs) with research grant proposals, and to manage and publish research data. To comply with award conditions, institutions need to manage such data for ten years after projects end. This JISC project will enable Oxford University to support its researchers in creating DMPs, provide the computational and semantic infrastructures to store and manage them, integrate them with Oxford’s current research information and grant records systems, and facilitate easy cross-references between records of research publications and information about the data underpinning that published research, linked to the University’s decision-making tools.
Aims and objectives
The OXFORD DMPonline Project will enable researchers at the University of Oxford to create, save, submit and use data management plans (DMPs), both to accompany research grant applications, and to guide the subsequent management of research data. These DMPs will be integrated with the existing research information systems of Oxford University’s Research Services. In collaboration with the Digital Curation Centre (DCC), we will adopt, adapt, customize and institutionally badge the DMPonline tool, will contribute researcher-focused evaluations, requirements, user stories and bug reports to the DCC to aid on-going development, and will provide enhancements that will benefit other institutionals.
Project methodology
We will:
-
Customize DMPonline;
-
Create DaMO, a simple DataCite- and CERIF-compliant Data Management Ontology;
-
Use DaMO to create RDF metadata for each DMP;
-
Use BagIt and SWORDv2 to create a DMP Package for each DMP, containing DMP copies in the DMPonline output formats, plus an RDF metadata manifest;
-
Create OXFORD DMPBank, a cloud-deployable VMWare instance of the DataBank Repository customised for DMPs, into which SWORD-wrapped DMP Packages can be ingested and made citable by assigning them Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs);
-
Provide an independent professional review of the security of the DMPonline tool.
Anticipated outputs and outcomes
The DMPonline tool, customized for OXFORD use, with feedback and a security vulnerabilities report to DCC.
User testing and training; documentation; user stories and suggestions for improvement.
A semantic infrastructure for encoding DMP metadata as RDF, using DaMO, the Data Management Ontology; OS software to create RDF output.
Making the DMPonline tool SWORDv2 compliant, including OS packaging software for DDC to incorporate into the basic tool, and creation of SWORD-compliant packaged DMPs for repository ingest.
Creating the OXFORD DMPBank, a repository for DMPs of potential generic usefulness.
Integration with University research information systems.
Talks and papers about this project’s outputs.
Technology / Standards
-
Open standards: BagIt, DataCite DOI, OWL 2 DL, RDF, SWORDv2
-
Open metadata models: CERIF
-
Open source software components: Apache, GitHub, Tomcat, Ubuntu Linux
-
Open communications systems: EtherPad, MediaWiki, Skype, WordPress.
Project Staff
Project Manager
- David Shotton [Principal Investigator, Project Manager and Primary User/Evaluator], Department of Zoology, University of Oxford. Phone 01865-271193; skype: davidshotton; e-mail: <david.shotton@zoo.ox.ac.uk>.
Project Team