The Data Management Plan (DMP) and why you should write one using FAIR Wizard Norway

It may feel as if a data management plan is something you are writing for your research funder. This is true, as there is often a mandatory requirement. The actual target of writing a DMP is however you, your project and your colleagues you are collaborating with.

Writing a DMP will:

• Establish good data management routines in your project, including creating awareness about ethical, legal and privacy aspects and inform allocation of required resources
• Make it easier to have a unified approach to data management within a research group and create awareness about potential data-related issues as early as possible
• Help you to create a preservation plan for your data and gather all necessary documentation to archive high-quality FAIR data (openly or with controlled access)
• Help you choose the right storage and backup solutions and thereby avoid data loss or violation of information security
• Give you an overview of data-related project aspects and thereby complement other project management tools and ease coordination with service providers and other stakeholders 

 plan.research-data.no

But then again, what should be included in a data management plan? With FAIR Wizard Norway we have tried to make writing data management plans easier by creating a common questionnaire adapted to the Norwegian research landscape. allowing you to select a version of our common questionnaire based on your project’s needs. 

You can log in with Feide and select the questionnaire version for your projects’ needs, share the plan with colleagues (anywhere), with your local research administration or us at the library. Ask for comments to specific questions, or mark them for follow-up. If you have written a good plan in one project, you can also use it as a draft for the next project. 

A data management plan in FAIR wizard Norway is a collaborative document, with standardisation regarding content and multiple export formats to fit researchers from law to physics. As long as your data management plan does not in itself contain sensitive data FAIR wizard Norway is the tool to use.

FAIR wizard Norway has been piloted at UiO, UiT, UiB and NTNU since 2025. From 2027 it will be a permanent national service, with local ownership and support.

For questions contact us: research-data@uio.no