1 Introduction

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has recently introduced a new Data Management and Sharing Policy (DMSP), which is now in effect. This brief primer provides an overview of some useful resources that will help you to implement some of this Policy’s main requirements for projects that receive NIH funding.

The NIH DMSP has three main requirements, which correspond to different stages of a typical project lifecycle:

  1. When first applying for an NIH grant, you must submit a Data Management and Sharing Plan (DMS Plan).
  2. If the grant application is successful, you must implement the data management protocol specified in the Data Management and Sharing Plan, and follow data management best practices as you pursue your research.
  3. At the conclusion of your research, you must deposit your research data in a data repository, where other researchers can independently access and download the data.

The Center for Research Data and Digital Scholarship, a collaboration between the University Libraries and Research Computing, offers services that can help you to fulfill all of these NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy requirements.

This brief primer provides an overview of these services, along with references to helpful external resources:

  • It begins with a discussion of data management planning.
    • Section 2 provides an overview of data management and sharing plans.
    • Section 3 provides a brief tutorial on DMPTool (a software application that can assist with the creation of NIH DMS Plans)
    • Section 4 provides examples of previously used Data Management and Sharing Plans (which will look similar to the DMS Plans you will write for NIH).
  • Section 5 provides a brief overview of services and resources that can help you to implement data management best practices once your project is underway.
  • It then turns to a discussion of publishing and archiving.
    • Section 6 provides an overview of data publishing and archiving.
    • Section 7 focuses on repository services at CRDDS and the CU Boulder institutional repository (CU Scholar), where you have the option of archiving your project data in accordance with NIH DMSP requirements. .
  • Section 8 offers a summary of tools and resources mentioned in the primer, and provides links to additional resources that may be helpful.