Perception and Practice of Data Management Plans in Health: An Exploratory Study

This paper discusses the quality of Data Management Plans (DMPs) in the health sector and assesses remove the researchers’ perceptions of DMPs. We applied qualitative methods to examine publicly available DMPs in healthcare, analyzing researchers’ views and practices for creating these plans. The study combines three research methods: analysis of DMPs in the health sector, semi-structured questionnaires, and interviews. Our findings reveal that researchers are generally unaware of the importance and usefulness of DMPs, and acknowledge various inconsistencies and challenges in their development. In this paper, we identified that data management practices need to be improved and advocate for automating them and making DMPs machine-actionable. We also recommend more educational programs, such as workshops and courses, in data management especially for researchers. Finally, we recommend defining clear, accessible guidelines for researchers to effectively elaborate DMPs, and institutionalizing data management within organizations by establishing data (or digital) competence centers.