The ARC requires researchers to outline how they plan to manage research data arising from ARC-funded research in their grant applications. It should be in the form of a Data Management Plan (DMP) and must be developed prior to the commencement of the project. When developing your Data Management Plan refer to the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research and the Management of Data and Information in Research Guide. Amongst other things, the plan should cover how research data will be managed, stored, accessed and re-used and maintained for the long-term.
There is no standard text to put in a DMP as each will be project specific. Guidance is provided by the Library on our Manage research data webpage or via our regular Staff Development Training.
Unlike the ARC, the NHMRC does not have any formal data management requirements; however it has an open access policy, which encourages innovative open access to research data. "NHMRC acknowledges the importance of making research data publicly accessible and therefore strongly encourages researchers to consider the reuse value of their data and to take reasonable steps to share research data and associated metadata arising from NHMRC supported research".
Yes. If your project has sensitive/confidential data, UQRDM's storage provider (UQ ITS) will ensure that this data is stored according to the relevant security and back up requirements. Current UQRDM security controls are outlined in the document below. If you have concerns please contact ITS Support.
Some standard text that you can use in a grant or ethics (e.g. HREC) application is written below. However, it is strongly recommended that the paragraph be adapted to include details of your specific project (e.g. title, data retention, etc). It does not meet the requirements of a Data Management Plan - check with your funding agency for requirements.
The data generated as a result of the proposed research project will be managed according to UQ’s Research Data Management Policy. This policy was developed to ensure that research data is properly managed according to recommendations made in The Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research and applicable legislation.
The research data for the proposed project will be managed via the UQ Research Data Manager (UQRDM). Project metadata such as the project name and the collaborators who will have access to the data, will be recorded in a project record within UQRDM. All project-related data will be stored in a durable format alongside this project metadata, which will be regularly backed up on secured ITS servers. Data will be accessible only to the collaborators recorded on the project record, and will be only accessible via their institutional usernames and passwords.
The project metadata will be maintained and updated accordingly throughout the project, a subset of which will be recorded in UQ’s open access repository (UQ eSpace), and harvested by Research Data Australia (RDA) following publication, or when the project is completed.
Managed dataset/s associated with this project metadata will also be available to view either by a DOI listed in the record (open access), or following a request to the authors (mediated access). This data will be retained for at least five years (Please check if it will need to be retained for longer, or adapt as per the legal requirements of your project, if relevant).
Some details about storage location, access, encryption and project record provenance are provided below. This information may be useful to include in your ethics application, when describing how you will store and manage your project's data.
Storage location: The storage locations are determined by the type of project described in the UQRDM record, this will vary depending whether the project includes identified/de-identified data. The decision matrix determines the storage allocation and location choice. All data is kept within Australia. UQ ITS manages this process in compliance with relevant security and back-up requirements.
Access is password protected. For human identifiable data, access is further restricted to the Collaborators listed on the UQRDM record who can only access the data with their institutional credentials (share by link/share by email functionalities within UQRDM cloud are disabled).
Encryption: Data is encrypted in transit for both access to the data from a project share within UQ and via the cloud interface. The data is not guaranteed to be encrypted at rest.
Project record provenance: A log of all the changes made to the project record is kept on the record page under "Record history'.
Also see: Is UQRDM suitable for storing sensitive data? which contains information about UQRDM security controls.
The FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable) principles are guidelines for research data management best practice, with a focus on facilitating re-use of valuable research output. UQRDM supports FAIR principles, and its services aim to assist researchers in making UQ research data FAIR.
Findability is supported through rich metadata, and easy discoverability.
In UQRDM, metadata is captured at the beginning of your research project, and can be enhanced, edited and expanded throughout the project. The metadata can be published in UQ eSpace, and assigned Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to be easily discovered by others. These metadata records are indexed by various online discovery platforms and reputable database such as Data Citation Index to increase findability.
Accessibility is supported through access to datasets via UQRDM.
Access conditions are set by the researcher in UQRDM, and displayed clearly on the UQ eSpace metadata records. Users can download data files where they have been made open access, or request access to data that is sensitive and can't be made open.
Interoperability is supported through integration with UQ eSpace and linkage to associated data and metadata
Related datasets, publications, software or code required to facilitate analyses or processing can be stored in UQRDM, published to UQ eSpace or elsewhere and linked via identifiers to form a rich description of the relationships between various objects related to a dataset. Where applicable, standard knowledge represenation via UQRDM metadata is applied (eg Field of Research Codes) to support interoperability.
Reusability is supported through rich metadata and clear licences.
UQRDM supports reusability through rich descriptive metadata describing the dataset and its provenance to facilitate its reuse. Datasets can be published to UQ eSpace via UQRDM and researchers must choose from a number of usage licences that clarify to users how data can be used and under what conditions. A recommended way of citing the data set is also shown at the top of each metadata record published in eSpace.