A Decision-Support Roadmap for Data Management Plan Development

This lightning talk was delivered as part of the 'Evolving DMPs: Smart, active, integrated, useful!' workshop organised by the Physical Sciences Data Infrastructure at the 20th International Digital Curation Conference. Abstract: The purpose of DMPs is to document how research data will be handled over the course of a project; yet in practice they often lack the operational clarity needed to make data management choices explicit and actionable. As a result, agreed data handling practices may remain difficult to operationalise, even for those directly involved in the project. This presentation introduces a decision-support Roadmap designed to assist the development and ongoing use of DMPs. Consistent with views of DMPs as active, dynamically updated records of research practice, rather than prescribing requirements, practices and tools, the Roadmap focuses on key decision points that arise when describing, revising, or interpreting DMPs. These decision points are organised as Waypoints, within which guidance is structured into layered levels of detail that support judgement about how much description is needed for data management choices to adequately reflect the characteristics of the data and workflows involved. Grounded in principles of proportionality and operational clarity, the Roadmap supports informed judgement without imposing templates or compliance-driven models. By making decision points explicit and clarifying expectations around appropriate levels of detail, the Roadmap aims to enhance the usability, interpretability, and long-term value of DMPs for researchers, data stewards, and research support professionals as projects and their data management practices evolve. Speaker Biography: Joao is a Data Steward in INESC TEC’s Management Support Team, a role they have held since 2021, and an Invited Assistant Professor at the University of Porto. Their work in Research Data Management began in 2013, with a focus on researcher engagement and metadata models. They are particularly interested in developing effective and sustainable approaches to data management and open data practices. They had a leading role in the FAIRway project, which contributed to strengthening FAIR-aligned practices within the Portuguese research ecosystem. They developed FEUP’s Transversal Skills in Research Data Management course and hold a master’s degree in Information Science and a PhD in Digital Media from the University of Porto.