This FAQ contains answers to the most frequently asked questions about DCC's DMPonline, a web-based tool to help researchers write data management plans (DMPs).
What is DMPonline? What does it do?
DMPonline is a web-based tool to help researchers write data management plans (DMPs). It provides relevant questions from your funder and organisation, together with guidance and example answers to help you respond. You can share your plan with collaborators to co-write it and export it in a number of different formats.
Who created DMPonline? Who owns it?
DMPonline has been designed and developed by the UK Digital Curation Centre (DCC) . We first released the tool in Spring 2010 and have been continuously improving it since. The tool is open source freeware, made available under a GNU General Public Licence.
What are the terms and conditions for using DMPonline?
By registering for DMPonline you agree to the Terms of Use . To identify your account we need to hold your email address but this and other personal details are used only for administrative purposes and are not shared. Any details that you enter into the plans can be seen either by those you have chosen to share the plans with, authorised officers at your institution or system administrators. For full details please check the Terms of Use.
How sustainable is DMPonline?
The DCC is committed to supporting DMPonline – running the service is part of our core remit. The code is made freely available and we welcome input from the wider community to add new features and help us sustain the tool. Other institutions, regional consortia and national agencies have installed and extended the code. Please see GitHub for details of the community additions.
Where can I find out more about funder requirements for DMPs?
Have funders endorsed the use of DMPonline?
Many funders support DMPonline and some give explicit endorsements. The MRC mentions that the tool can be used as an alternative to its paper-based template and points to the DMPonline customised template, which includes MRC guidance. We are in discussions with NERC to explore how its data centres could use DMPonline, and the EPSRC, STFC and Wellcome Trust all recommend that users consult the guidance provided by the DCC. We plan to liaise more closely with research funders to explore how DMPonline can better serve their needs.
What do I need to do to register for DMPonline?
Registration is very simple. If you prefer, you can also log in to our test site first from which test data is routinely removed. This is useful if you want to experiment with creating plans or customising the tool. If you just want to see how the tool works, watch this screencast .
What does it mean to ‘log in with my institutional credentials’?
Users based at UK universities are able to sign in with their university username and password. You’ll first need to create an account with DMPonline that we can link to your university details. You will be walked through this as part of the sign up process. Shibboleth allows you to sign-in to lots of different applications from your university account.
If you change jobs and move to a new institution you can unlink your old institutional credentials and associate your account with the new institutional login, if applicable (see I’m moving to a new institution – do I need to re-register? ).
I’m not based at a UK university. Can I still use DMPonline?
Yes, anyone can use DMPonline – you don’t have to be based at a university or in the UK. If your organisation isn’t listed in the dropdown list on sign up, just select ‘other organisation’ or ask us to add it by emailing dmponline@dcc.ac.uk
My funder isn’t listed. Can I still write a plan?
Yes. It is useful to write a DMP regardless of whether you’re required to for funding. If you select to ‘write a generic DMP’ you’ll be presented with the DCC Checklist – a standard set of questions and guidance based on the most common themes to come up in data management plans (see image below).
We’ve developed templates for several research funders based on the specific requirements and guidance they have released. If your funder has DMP requirements that you would like us to add, please let us know at dmponline@dcc.ac.uk
Do you have any example plans that I can look at and reuse?
There are lots of example plans online that have been shared by researchers in a range of disciplines. The DCC collates a list , which includes examples from the UK and USA.
My plan was just a test. How do I delete it?
Go to ‘My Plans’ page and press Delete, as flagged on the screengrab below. Please note that if your plan has been shared, any collaborators and co-owners will also lose access.
How do I change my username and/or password?
You can edit these details on the ‘Edit Profile’ page. To access this, log in, click on the down arrow next to your username and select ‘Edit profile’ as shown in the image below.
What happens if I forget my password?
Go to the DMPonline homepage and click on ‘Forgot your password' link in the Sign in box. We will email you with instructions on how to reset your password.
Something has gone wrong. Who can help?
Please email dmponline@dcc.ac.uk with your query. If it’s urgent, you can also call the DCC helpdesk on 0131 651 1239 and your call with be directed to someone who can help.
I’m moving to a new institution – do I need to re-register?
No, you can update your details on the ‘Edit Profile’ page. This allows you to change your email address, organisational affiliation and reset your password. Here you can also unlink any institutional credentials for single sign-in services.
Who owns the DMPs I create and what happens when I move institution?
The University of Edinburgh holds your plans on your behalf, but they are your property and responsibility. As the content creator, you own and retain access to your plans even if your institutional affiliation changes. Authorised officers of your home institution may also access your plans for specific purposes - for example, to check compliance with funder/institutional requirements or to help you calculate storage requirements.
What does it mean to share a plan?
Sharing your plan allows you to collaborate on it with colleagues. You can give others three different levels of access: read-only, edit, or co-owner. Read-only means that the person you have shared with is able to view and export your plan but cannot make any changes. Edit allows them to make changes to the content of the plan and to export it. A co-owner has all the rights to the plan that you have, in other words, they can edit plan details and content, share the plan with others or delete it.
Who can my plan be shared with?
You can share your plan with anyone; they don’t have to be within your organisation. Select Share, enter the email address of the person you would like to share your plan with and the tool will notify them. They will have to create a DMPonline account to be able to view your plan.
What happens if two people are working on the plan at once?
The plan is locked for editing by section not as a whole. While one user is editing a section of the plan, others will see it in the read-only view as in the second and third pictures. In the read-only view users can read any answers and comment but not edit the text.
Is the exported pdf customisable?
Yes. You can set the typeface and size, and adjust page margins. You can also edit the title and select which sections and questions to include in the export. Click on the dropdown arrow on the ‘Settings’ bar to view the options available.
Is it only universities that can create custom templates?
No. Any organisation can customise the tool by, for example, adding DMP templates that can be used by its employees. Organisations can also customise funder templates to ask any additional questions they want researchers to answer. Discipline-specific guidance can also be added to the tool.
How do I customise the tool?
Organisations can customise the tool by adding their own DMP template(s) and guidance, to present to their users. Customisations can be performed by users with administrative status. You can ask additional questions to gather information on the data being created and how this will be managed. Adding tailored guidance helps to raise awareness of local support and services. You can also provide examples and suggested answers.
Guidance on customising DMPonline is available on the DCC website. This includes recordings from webinars that outline the options for customisation and show users how to use the admin interface.
How do I become an admin user for my organisation?
Please email us at dmponline@dcc.ac.uk to request admin rights. We recommend that you use the test site first to become familiar with the administrative interface. Please note that we don't copy data over from the test site to the live instance, to maintain the integrity of the tool. The test site should just be viewed as a trial area.
Can I have more than one admin user per organisation?
Yes. There isn’t a limit to the number of admin users you can have in an organisation, but we recommend limiting this to 2-3 people to keep control of changes and enable co-ordination.
If we start to create our own templates can we hide these from public view until they are ready?
Yes, your template won’t display until you have published it. You can preview it in the admin interface first too to check you are happy with it. If you would like to trial your template before making it available for general use, you can create and publish it on the test site first. Please note though that we can’t transfer templates and guidance from test to live. They will need to be re-created.
Can others see my organisation's questions and guidance?
Once you have published your template, others will be able to view this by selecting your organisation from the dropdown list under the ‘create plan’ wizard. This allows researchers in cross-institutional partnerships to select a different institution from their own if required, for example, when another partner is responsible for data management.
If people register but do not use their Shibboleth login, can they still see their University guidance?
Yes, users will see an organisation’s guidance by selecting that organisation from the dropdown in the ‘create plan’ wizard.
How do we find out how many of our researchers are signed up to DMPonline?
You can see how many users at your organisation have registered and how many DMPs they have created under the admin interface. We plan to add more detailed statistics to help institutions monitor use too.
Is DMPonline open source? Can I reuse it?
Yes, the code is open source and made freely available on GitHub . DMPonline is a Ruby on Rails application, made available under a GNU General Public Licence. You are welcome to download it to run your own instance. You will need to have Ruby 2.0.0p247 or greater installed on your server and a MySQL server v5.0 or greater.
If you install DMPonline, please notify the DCC and acknowledge our work. Acknowledgement should credit the DCC and include the DMPonline logo with a link to the tool – for example, see the University of Alberta DMP Builder .
Please note that only the code is shared, not the database with funder requirements. Templates and guidance are made available in the DCC-hosted version only.
I have ideas for new features. What should I do?
Is it possible to create a foreign language version of DMPonline?
Yes, the code has been developed with this in mind. We have an internationalisation file that can be amended to allow foreign-language versions to be created. This has been tested in Germany and Spain so far.
If you would like to create a foreign language version, please let us know . You can either download the code to run your own instance, or pass the translated internationalisation file on to us to be hosted on the main instance of DMPonline .
