The Digital Research Alliance of Canada (the Alliance) has awarded $237 thousand in funding to the University of Alberta for the DMP Assistant Stabilization. This initiative forms part of the Alliance’s DRI Investments for 2023-25, and will help researchers meet Tri-Agency and institutional funding requirements through data management planning.
The aim of this initiative is to improve the usability and scope of the DMP Assistant, the Alliance’s bilingual data management planning tool developed in collaboration with the University of Alberta Library. The DMP Assistant helps researchers develop DMPs, which are foundational to research data management (RDM), an international best practice, and increasingly required by institutions and funders with the implementation of the Tri-Agency Research Data Management Policy.
Through this initiative, the University of Alberta is hosting two positions, providing additional capacity and technical resources to implement new and extended features for the DMP Assistant. These features will help to:
- Support researchers with Tri-Agency and institutional funding requirements for DMPs
- Advance DMP innovations including machine-actionable DMPs and persistent identifiers (PIDs)
- Support researchers and their institutions through greater integration with allied research processes (e.g., ethics review, funding applications and grant administration)
- Augment the ability of Canadian researchers to participate in international research
- Leverage and track the impact of data management planning on the research workflow
- Support the FAIR Principles by making research more findable and citable
These positions will also increase capacity to maintain the DMP Assistant, provide additional support for increased usage, and develop new resources including DMP examples and templates. This initiative will be further supported by additional positions and funding, to be announced at a later date.
Investments in data management planning will also help to ensure more effective and efficient use of advanced research computing resources, as well as improved management, retention and reusability of research software code associated with research data.
The Alliance looks forward to working with the University of Alberta to improve the DMP Assistant, help researchers meet funding requirements for DMPs and support best practices in RDM.
For more information about this initiative, please contact: funding-subventions@alliancecan.ca.