An Analysis and Characterization of
DMPs in NSF Proposals from the
University of Illinois
William H. Mischo, Mary C. Schlembach, &
Megan N. O’Donnell
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Iowa State University
RDAP14 Research Data Access & Preservation
Summit
March 26, 2014
NSF Data Management Plans
• Data Management Plans (DMPs): required
element in NSF proposals, January 2011
• July 2011: the Library, working with the campus
Office of Sponsored Programs and Research
Administration (OSPRA) began an analysis of
DMPs in submitted NSF grant proposals
• Currently, looked at 1,600 grants with 1,260 in
the analysis.
Reasons for Analysis
• What storage venues and mechanisms for
sharing and reuse are being used?
• Are the PI’s using local templates and local
campus resources such as the IDEALS?
Follow-on
• Develop campus-wide infrastructure (Research
Data Service - RDS)
• Assist in compliance with federal agencies
• Develop important partnerships with campus
units (CITES, NCSA, Colleges) and national
entities
• Develop best practices and standard approaches
Analysis
• Analysis attempts to characterize and classify
DMPs into categories
• DMPs assigned multiple categories
• 1,260 DMPs from July 2011 to November 2013
Categories
• PI Server – Servers and workstations that the PIs
(and their students/staff) use to store project
data.
laboratory server/workstations, external hard drives, group
computer
• PI Website – Websites edited or administered
by the PI or a group they belong to.
Examples: lab website, project website, wiki, PI’s website
Categories
• Campus – Services located, operated by, run by
or endorsed by Illinois.
IDEALS, Netfiles and Box.net, NCSA, and Beckman
Institute.
• Department – Used when a department was
specifically mentioned as providing a storage or
hosting resource.
Departmental website, departmental server, departmental
backup service or a web address traced back to an
academic department (also given the “campus” label)
Categories
• Remote – Services and sites not located on the
Illinois campus.
NASA, other campuses, collaborative projects, non-Illinois
institutes
• Disciplinary – Disciplinary repositories.
GenBank, arXiv, ICPSR, SEAD, Nanohub, and Dryad
• Cloud – Storage services using cloud technology.
Google Drive, Google Code, Box.net, Amazon, Microsoft,
Dropbox
Categories
• Publication - Scholarly outputs.
Journal articles, workshops, and conference
presentations/posters.
• Analog - Physical records/data.
Lab notebooks, photographs, files
• Specimens - Physical specimens.
Usually biological or artifacts
Categories
• Optical Disc - DVD, CD, and Blu-ray discs.
• Not specified – the DMP was not specific
enough for us to categorize further.
• No Data – Indicated the proposal will produce
no data products.
• Local Template Used – used a library authored
template.
ALL DMPs (n=1,260)
Category
PI Server
PI Website
Campus
Department
Remote
Disciplinary
Publication
Cloud
Optical Disc
Analog
Specimens
Not Specified
Collaborative
No Data
Number
Percent
503
529
667
142
353
275
556
63
56
131
111
66
164
103
39.9%
41.9%
52.9%
11.2%
28%
21.8%
44.1%
5%
4%
10.4%
8.8%
5.2%
13%
8.2%
Data Venue and Risk
Submitted Proposals
Data Location
Funded Proposals
Risk of Loss/Corruption/ Breach
n=298
n=1260
PI Server/Website
Departmental
Server/Website
Campus-Wide Resource
IDEALS (Institutional
Repos.)
NCSA
Disciplinary
Repository/Cloud
Remote Repository
Optical Disk, Specimens,
Analog
64%
High
61%
High
11.2%
Medium to High
7%
Medium to High
52.9%
21.9%
45%
Low
4.3%
19.8%
Low
16.4%
25.8%
Medium to Low
21.4%
Medium to Low
28%
Medium to High
22.8%
Medium to High
19.4%
Out of Scope
11%
Out of Scope
Notables
• Funded: 298
• IDEALS: 275
• Used local
template: 254
• NCSA/XSEDE: 55
• Only 87 DMPS
contained
information about
file types
• ICPSR: 17
• Dryad: 22
• GenBank: 55
• ArX: 61
Analysis
• Any differences in storage venue or technologies
between the unfunded proposals and the funded
proposals?
• Any differences between the proposals from the
first year and the more current proposals?
• Other differences in proposal categories
between funded and unfunded
• 734 active NSF awards, $861.8 million
Analysis: Funded vs. Not-funded
• IDEALS institutional repository: frequencies:
62 funded, 197 not funded: chi-square: 0.17.
need chi-square >= 3.84 to be significant
• Storing data on PI server or website:
183 funded, 569 not funded: chi-square: 0.7
• Disciplinary or Cloud:
67 funded, 241 not funded: chi-square: 0.85
• Remote storage:
68 funded, 267 not funded: chi-square: 3.01
Analysis
• Use of IDEALS
before August 2012 = 108
after (thru November 2013) = 166
chi-square: 4.59, p < .05
• Use of Disciplinary or Cloud
before August 2012 = 121
after = 182
chi-square: 4.33, p < .05
Implications and Conclusions
1. No significant differences between
funded/unfunded proposals in storage venues no funding advantage in IDEALS, Disciplinary.
2. But, more recent proposals suggest IDEALS and
disciplinary repositories included at a
significantly higher level. Why?
• What is the role of the library? The campus? The
subject discipline?
• Connecting data to the literature important