Data Management and Sharing Plans (DMS) Lesson Set

This set of focused training materials (“microtrainings”) is designed to equip learners with strategies for developing NIH DMS (Data Management and Sharing) Plans that reflect FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reuseable) data management and sharing best practices. They are intended to describe community-developed best practices for all stakeholders who create or work with DMS Plans. These materials will help stakeholders develop plans that optimize the findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability of shared scientific data.

Each pair of microtraining documents provides a lesson on a specific DMS Plan component, highlights relevant best practices, and provides a self-test with annotated answers to ensure the learner has an effective grasp of the knowledge. The first document (filename with trailing 'T') in each pair has a detailed explanation of the component, best practice guidance, and a self-test. The second document (filename with trailing 'S') in each pair provides the solution to the self-test, an explanation of the response, and additional useful information. There is one document pair for each of the 12 DMS Plan elements at the time of this publication. Note that if the specific form of these elements change in the future, the thematic lessons on best practices for these key topic areas will likely remain highly relevant.

Note that any mention of specific scientific methodologies, experimental techniques, tools, data or metadata formats, instrumental technologies and/or repositories used in the prompts do not necessarily constitute any form of endorsement by NIH, and should be interpreted solely as examples. Where practical, multiple options are provided.