2.6 Stewardship of your own data: writing your data management plan

A research and data management plan is essential and should include the following elements as a minimum:

• Name and general description of the project.
• The data sources, that is, the website(s) (e.g. archive or repository) where data are located.
• How you are collecting the data.
• Information about the files, folders and storage strategy.

The Digital Curation Centre has examples to help you develop one (Jones, 2011), and your own institution will provide advice. A record of data management activities is crucial to assuring the integrity of your research across the entire digital data lifecycle, from creation to preservation.