Penn State University Libraries - Subject Specialist's Tips and Guides

What the NSF requirement boils down to:

The NSF data management plan requirement is basically a document supplementary to the proposal that answers these questions:

• What data will be generated by the project?

• How will the data be managed?

The answers to the questions get unpacked by looking at this subset of issues:

• types of data

• standards for the data (e.g., metadata formats)

• policies for sharing and access

• usage rights for the data - this regards re-use, re-distribution, creation of derivatives

• plans for archiving and preservation (for continuing access)