Top 6 DataWorks! How-to Guides for Preparing an NIH Data Management and Sharing Plan

Since we are approaching another major National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant deadline in June, the FASEB DataWorks! team wanted to highlight our top guides to help researchers prepare their NIH data management and sharing materials. We hope these guides will simplify the application process. If there is a guide you would like to see that is not yet available in our Knowledge Base, please get in touch and share your request.

1. Overview of 2023 NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy
   This article will introduce you to the 2023 NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy (DMS Policy). You will learn what is covered under the new policy, what has changed, how to submit your DMS Plan and how your submission will be judged by the NIH. After reading this guide, you can jump into our articles on each individual element required in a DMS Plan.
   
   
2. DMPTool for Building Compliant Data Management and Sharing Plans
   Overwhelmed by writing your NIH DMS Plan? In this article, we cover how to use the DMPTool, an online wizard that will walk you through the plan-writing process, complete with guidance and examples for each element of the DMS Plan. You can also collaborate with your research partners and request feedback from your institution via the DMPTool.
   
   
3. A Guide to Choosing a Data Repository for NIH-Funded Research
   This guide outlines how to choose a data repository when writing an NIH grant application. Most grant recipients share their data in a data repository, which is a tool to share, preserve, and discover datasets, usually accessed via a web portal. In this article, we cover the definition of data repositories, their benefits, and the types of repositories before moving into how to select a data repository according to NIH rules.
   
   
4. Budgeting: Estimating Costs for Data Management and Sharing
   This guide outlines how to write a budget for data management and sharing costs for an NIH grant application. Our guide stresses that DMS costs will almost never be zero, so principal investigators (PIs) should plan to include this new section in their budget. In this article, we outline allowable and unallowable costs, the application process for DMS budgets in NIH grants, and the recent update to NIH DMS budget policy.
   
   
5. Sample NIH Data Management and Sharing Plans
   While your DMS Plan should be specific to your research project, sample DMS Plans provide a sense of what others have included in their plans. In this article, we provide links to all the sample DMS plans released by the NIH, as well as other sources for sample plans PIs can use.
   
   
6. Creating an NIH Data Management Plan – January 2024 DataWorks! Salon
   If you prefer video content, check out this recording of our January 2024 DataWorks! Salon. In this presentation, you will get an overview of the NIH DMS Policy and hear an update from a staff member of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) on implementation and common mistakes.

In addition to the information in this article, we have many other how-to guides available at the FASEB DataWorks! Help Desk and additional Salon recordings can be found here on the FASEB DataWorks! YouTube Playlist.