Final NIH Policy for Data Management and Sharing (NOT-OD-21-013)
For the data management and sharing plan, you must list ALL the data that you will produce for your project. However, the NIH recognizes that not all of that data will be preserved and shared. Before starting your plan try thinking through the following steps:
1. Consider ALL the data that will be produced during the course of your project. Write these down and include details such as the type of data, level of aggregation, and number of samples/participants. Think about what associated metadata would be needed in order to easily interpret the data.
2. Decide what data will be shared. Keep in mind ethical, legal, and technical limitations that will prevent sharing specific data sets (e.g. did not get consent to share, patent application, etc.) The NIH has outlined what are justifiable reasons for not sharing data.
3. Determine where you would like to share your data. Depending on your data, NIH has set repositories for sharing. See what meets your needs here.
Also, try out this Data Management Worksheet before you start writing. It will help you organize your thoughts about what data you will produce, making it easier to write your Data Management & Sharing Plan.
