Yes I agree - my interpretation of this was that (as with EPSRC) institutions should have policies and comms plans to make researchers aware of this requirement, rather than directly policing it, and to make training and guidance available as appropriate. It would be good to have more clarity in the ESRC policy though, is it's rather open to interpretation as it currently stands!
Jez
-----Original Message-----
From: Research Data Management discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Alan Morrison
Sent: 27 March 2015 15:25
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: ESRC publishes new research data policy
Hi Gareth,
Yes I noticed that responsibility on the institution too. I read it as more aspirational than a practical expectation as I'm not sure how the ESRC would expect a small RDMS team to review & police every ESRC-funded project for compliance in this way. It might be worth asking for clarification on this point - what would the benchmarks for this be? have you ever known a project to adhere faithfully to everything promised in a DMP? - or simply state that such checks would be carried out on a best effort basis.
As ever the DCC and DMPonline might on hand to give some help here. In the recently published DMPonline roadmap 2015 one of the "themes" is "lifecycle and review" which seeks to introduce new features that support and promote the DMP as a living document, identifying distinct phases:
" Examples include enabling users to tag plans with specific states such as 'in draft' or 'completed', enabling automatic notification of specified institutional contacts when plans become ready for review, and sequencing plans through multiple phases in compliance with specific funder requirements such as the Horizon 2020 Open Data Pilot. "
http://www.dcc.ac.uk/sites/default/files/documents/tools/dmpOnline/DMPonline%20Roadmap%202015-v1_0.pdf
The first institutional responsibility on the same list is to "ensure ESRC grant holders comply fully with this research data policy" which seems equally impractical (and vague!) without further clarification on how such compliance can be effectively measured and reported.
Alan
Alan Morrison
Research Data Support Officer | Research Data Management & Sharing Project Research and Learning Support University of Strathclyde Level 5, Andersonian Library, Curran Building
101 St James Road
Glasgow G4 ONS
> This raises an important point. DMPs like any plan need to be reviewed
> and monitored during implementation so that they can be amended if
> things change and ultimately followed through to a satisfactory and confirmed completion. So the scenario that Gareth lays out would certainly be my expectation.
> John
Sent from my iPad
> On 27 Mar 2015, at 12:31, Gareth Knight <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Hello all,
> The new ESRC policy appears to match a lot of the RCUK's and other funder expectations, as far as I can tell. However, there looks to be one ESRC-specific requirement that requires extra effort:
>
> "ensure all ESRC-funded projects adhere to their plan throughout the life of their funding"
>
> Has anyone considered how they will meet this expectation? There's an explicit expectation that RDM Services will help researchers to write a DMP in the application stage, but this seems to imply that RDM Services should also audit projects on a regular basis during project life (perhaps annually?) to check that their DMP is still applied as-is and, potentially, help them to update the document to reflect current practice in the event that it's changed.
>
> Gareth
> --
> Gareth Knight
> Project Manager,
> Research Data Management Support Service London School of Hygiene &
> Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) Keppel Street, London, WC1E 7HT
> Telephone: (+44) 020 7927 2564
> http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/research/researchdataman/
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