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Research Data Management at OCAD University

This guide will provide information on research data management (RDM) including policy, planning, security, description, and sharing based on best practices.

Data Management Planning

Effective RDM begins with a plan, a formal statement describing how research data will be managed and documented throughout a project. While considered good practice in general, many researchers develop data management plans (DMP) because their funders require one. We recommend Portage's DMP Assistant, an open and national planning tool developed by Portage, a project of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries. The DMP Assistant provides a checklist of questions to guide researchers through their plan and is designed to respond to funder requirements. 

For more information about data management plans visit the Data Curation Centre's guide, How to Develop a Data Management and Sharing Plan.

Things to consider at this stage include estimating the volume of data required for your project and associated costs for data storage. If your project will involve particularly large volumes of data contact Mike Steventon, Manager, Research Technology. It is also important to be mindful of ethical obligations related to data contained in your application to the Research Ethics Board. For questions regarding data and research ethics, contact research@ocadu.ca.

Funder requirements

The Tri-Agency, which includes the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), has released a DRAFT Tri-Agency Research Data Management Policy For Consultation which outlines its proposed expectations of institutions and researchers, including

  • Encouraging researchers to provide access to  research data where ethical, legal, and commercial requirements allow, and in accordance with the standards of their disciplines;
  • Encouraging researchers to complete data management plans (DMPs) as an essential step in research project design;
  • Requiring institutions to develop an institutional strategy for research data management
  • Requiring institutions to develop their own data management policy

Note that SSHRC has had a policy since 1990. It requires that all data collected in SSHRC-funded research be made available to other researchers. Costs associated with preparing research data for deposit are considered eligible expenses in SSHRC grant programs. Research data includes, but is not limited to: quantitative and qualitative social, political, and economic data sets, experimental research data, and multimedia files.