This guide is intended to assist researchers, principal investigators, grant administrators, support staff, and other members of the Virginia Tech community who need to prepare a data sharing plan in compliance with NIH requirements.
What Is a Data Sharing Plan?
Data Sharing Plan is a document that specifies your plans for data sharing in order to:
Is a Data Sharing Plan Similar to a Data Management Plan Required by the NSF and Other Federal Funding Agencies?
Yes, it is similar. It shares the same principle of data sharing and preservation. Data Management Plan (DMP) is a more detailed document that specifies your plans for managing your data for a research project. This includes details such as file naming conventions, metadata standards, storage space, security and back-up. In addition you will understand how you will work with others and share files, and what you will do with the data over the medium or long term.
In a broader sense, data sharing achieves many important goals for the scientific community, such as...
Virginia Tech University Libraries also provide additional guidance and resources for data management with a different focus.
To ensure that all NIH proposals coming out of Virginia Tech meet the data sharing plan requirements, VT researchers are encouraged to consult with librarians in the University Libraries. Expert guidance on developing data management plans starts by contacting us at dataservices@vt.edu:
We are happy to answer questions about data management and assist with tailoring data sharing plans for specific research projects which may improve the competitiveness of a proposal. We are willing to provide constructive feedback either through the DMPTool review function or in-person.