![DART logo][1] [1]:https://mfr.osf.io/export?url=https://osf.io/y6qrg/?action=download%26direct%26mode=render&initialWidth=848&childId=mfrIframe&format=200x200.jpeg <h1>ABOUT THE PROJECT</h1> This two-year NLG-Libraries Demonstration Project proposal, led by Oregon State University in collaboration with the University of Oregon, the University of Michigan, the Georgia Institute of Technology and Pennsylvania State University, will facilitate a multi-university study of faculty data management plans (DMPs). **The primary output of this project will be an analytic rubric to standardize the review of data management plans as a means to inform targeted expansion or development of research data services at academic libraries.** Our project addresses Objective 1.4 of the IMLS 2012-2016 Strategic Plan: “Support the training and development of museum and library leadership to meet the needs of diverse publics in a rapidly changing environment.” The heart of this objective is, “ensuring their institutions and their staffs have the resources, tools, and methods necessary to deliver effective services to communities.” In the academic environment, research faculty and graduate students are two of our core user communities. As academic libraries evolve from traditional roles as repositories of information to becoming active collaborators with faculty in their research processes, there is an increasing need for mechanisms to understand and support the data needs and practices of researchers. This project seeks to provide those mechanisms. To provide research data management (RDM) support services, libraries will need to develop and maximize expertise in data curation and management within the library. Many university libraries are reorganizing to initiate service structures that can meet the demands of RDM, but may lack staff expertise in this area. Federal, state and private agencies increasingly require a DMP as a component of funding proposals; they describe how data generated in the proposed work will be managed, preserved and shared. As a document produced by researchers themselves, DMPs provide a window into the knowledge, capabilities and needs of faculty and their graduate students. Analysis of DMPs can provide insights into the kinds of data researchers are generating, and how they intend to manage those data. This information is fundamental to providing RDM services that are tailored to the needs of the faculty and students we aim to support. The primary deliverables of this project are an analytic rubric for assessing the content and quality of a DMP, and a multi-institutional comparative analysis of DMPs which demonstrates the rubric. Our rubric will give librarians a means to utilize DMPs as a research tool that can inform decisions about which research data services they should provide. This tool will enable librarians who may have no direct experience in applied research or data management to become better informed about researcher’s data practices and how library services can support them. **An analysis of DMPs can identify common gaps and weaknesses in faculty understanding of data management principles and practices, and identify barriers for faculty in applying best practices. These findings could highlight areas where libraries may be able to provide services and/or training.** A structured review of DMPs would also identify the range and types of obligations for library resources and services that are listed in DMPs, thereby assisting libraries in targeting or expanding the most critical support services, making more efficient use of limited resources. The overall goals are to enable academic librarians to offer support in the area of DMP consultation, an important service area, and facilitate their institution’s development or improvement of research data services as a whole. The rubric will be tested and applied across multiple institutions, and the results will provide a broad perspective on the DM practices and needs of research scientists. These results benefit the wider academic library community by identifying common DM gaps, barriers, and service obligations, which could be used by institutions to inform and improve their local responses to RDM issues. These results would also be of wide interest outside of the library community to anyone who is writing a DMP. In the same way that a student can use a rubric for assessing student performance to inform their own understanding of expectations, a rubric for DMP analysis could be used by anyone who is writing a DMP to identify critical areas or topics to cover. **Academic librarians need a wide array of tools to develop research data services and reach their full potential in this area. The analytic rubric developed and demonstrated during this project, and the results of our research, will add to the collective knowledge base of the academic librarianship community, and bolster our ability to provide targeted, appropriate services in support of data-driven research.** <h1>PROJECT TEAM</h1> **Principal Investigator** - Amanda L. Whitmire, Head Librarian & Bibliographer, Harold A. Miller Library & Assistant to the Director, Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University | [web][1], [ORCID][2] **Co-Principal Investigators** - Jake Carlson, Research Data Services Manager, University of Michigan Library | [web][3], [ORCID][4] - Patricia M. Hswe, Program Officer in Scholarly Communications, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation | [web][5], [ORCID][6] - Susan Wells Parham, Head, Scholarly Communication & Digital Curation, Georgia Institute of Technology Library | [web][7] - Brian Westra, Lorry I. Lokey Science Data Services Librarian, University of Oregon | [web][8], [ORCID][9] **Former Team Member** Lizzy Rolando, now with MailChimp **Advisory board** - Mary C. Schlembach, Assistant Engineering Librarian, Physics and Astronomy Librarian, Associate Professor of Library Administration, Grainger Engineering Library Information Center, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - William (Bill) Mischo, Head , Grainger Engineering Library Information Center, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - Barrie Hayes, Bioinformatics and Translational Science Librarian, Health Sciences Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - Amy Pienta, Associate Research Scientist; Director, Data Acquisitions; Director, National AIDS & HIV Data Archive Program, ICPSR - Stephanie Wright, Mozilla Science Lab, Mozilla Foundation - Lisa Johnston, Research Services Librarian, Co-Director of the University Digital Conservancy, University of Minnesota Libraries - Angus Whyte, Senior Institutional Support Officer, UK Digital Curation Centre ---------- **NOTE: we still need to add to this site:** - a readme file for the data files - annotations that go along with the rubric, which will contain helpful guidance and example text - a bibliography of related work and products of this project - other stuff that will come up We regret that these could not be made avaialable at the time of this first OSF registration. Mea culpa! >the DART crew [1]: http://hopkinsmarinestation.stanford.edu/content/amanda-whitmire [2]: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2429-8879 [3]: http://www.lib.umich.edu/users/jakecar [4]: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2733-0969 [5]: http://patriciahswe.net/ [6]: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0013-2655 [7]: http://www.library.gatech.edu/research_help/librarians/parham.php [8]: http://library.uoregon.edu/dc/directory/profile.php?profile=bwestra [9]: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0898-078X