RSpace – DMPTool Integration Demo

We will demo the integration being developed by the California Digital Library and Research Space enabling bi-directional data flows between RSpace and DMPTool, facilitating higher quality and more comprehensive capture and tracking of research data throughout the research life cycle. Integrations between RSpace and repositories like Dataverse and Figshare enable subsequent direct deposit of the DMP and associated research data from RSpace into the repository.

Currently, data management plans (DMPs) operate as static projections of plans for data use and management. They are prepared for grant proposals, but once submitted rarely referred to thereafter. Data produced in the actual research usually varies significantly from what was envisioned in the DMP. Because it is hard to associate data actually produced with the DMP, the DMP’s usefulness to project researchers, funders, the public and broader research community is limited.

Efforts are underway to introduce ‘machine actionable’ elements into DMPs, so that they become dynamic and are better able to pass data and metadata from the DMP to other Research Data Management (RDM) tools, e.g., repositories. The integration between RSpace and DMPTool should be seen in the context of these efforts, but represents a major step beyond what has previously been contemplated.

In Phase 1 of the integration, recently completed, it is possible to link in RSpace to DMPs in DMPTool. Through existing RSpace repository integrations like Dataverse and Figshare, the DMP can then be included along with data created in connection with the project for direct deposit into repositories. By accessing these deposits, the broader research community, funders and the public can examine and compare the DMP and the research results.

We plan to extend the integration to other widely used DMP online tools running off the common DMP Roadmap codebase like DMPonline and DMP Assistant.