Collaborative Research Data Afterlives: The long-term impact of NSF Data Management Plans on data archiving and sharing for increased access

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In 2011, the National Science Foundation began requiring that all funded projects provide data management plans (DMPs) to ensure that project data, computer codes, and methodological procedures were available to other scientists for future use. However, the extent to which these data management requirements have resulted in more and better use of project data remains an open question. This project thus investigates the National Science Foundation’s DMP mandate as a national science policy and examines the broad impacts of this policy across a strategic sample of five disciplines funded by the National Science Foundation. It considers the organization and structure of DMPs across fields, the institutions involved in data sharing, data preservation practices, the extent to which DMPs enable others to use secondary project data, and the kinds of data governance and preservation practices that ensure that data are sustained and accessible. Systematic investigation of the impact of DMPs and data sharing cultures across fields will assist funding agencies and research scientists working to produce reproducible and open science by identifying barriers to data archiving, sharing, and access. The principal investigators will use project findings to develop data governance guidelines for information professionals working with scientific data and to articulate best practices for scientific communities using DMPs for data management. This project aims to enhance understanding of the role data management plans (DMPs) play in shaping data lifecycles. It does so by examining DMPs across five fields funded by the National Science Foundation to understand data practices, archiving and access issues, the infrastructures that support data sharing and reuse, and the extent to which project data are later used by other researchers. In phase I, the investigators will gather a strategic sample of DMPs representing a wide range of data types and data retention practices from different scientific fields. Phase II consists of forensic data analysis of a subset of DMPs to discover what has become of project data. Phase III develops detailed case studies of research project data lifecycles and data afterlives with qualitative interviews and archival documentary analysis to help develop best practices for sustainable data preservation, access, and sharing. Phase IV will translate findings into data governance recommendations for stakeholders. The project thus contributes to research about contemporary studies of scientific data production and circulation while assessing the effect of DMPs as a national science policy initiative affecting data management practices in different scientific communities. The comparative research design and mixed methods enables theory building about cross-disciplinary data practices and data cultures across fields and advances knowledge within data studies, information management studies, and science and technology studies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.