Empowering Stakeholders in Data Management through Machine-Actionable DMPs
Adoption Factsheet
Outputs Adopted: RDA DMP Common Standard for Machine-actionable Data Management Plans
Related RDA Groups: DMP Common Standards WG, Active Data Management Plans IG
Adopting Organisation: Institut de l’Information Scientifique et Technique
What was the challenge that you addressed?
The initiative seeks to turn the DMP from a static requirement into a dynamic research management tool. It reduces researchers’ administrative burden, allowing focus on scientific quality, and adapts DMPs to institutional and disciplinary needs. With actionable recommendations and tools, it promotes good practices. A key goal is to enable smooth data exchange between DMPs and service providers, delivering tangible benefits to all stakeholders. It also supports FAIR practices and clear task distribution in data stewardship. This aligns with the Second French Plan for Open Science (2021) and the initial National Plan (2018) to generalise the implementation of data management plans in research projects.
The adoption process
The DMP OPIDoR application has evolved from the open-source DMP Roadmap code, with a major step being the introduction of a machine-actionable data model. This model aligns with institutional templates, French research community use cases (researchers, funders, service providers), and guidelines from Science Europe and the RDA DMP Common Standard. Its structured, extensible design meets the specific needs of various services and disciplines. The resulting common model is fully compliant with the RDA DMP Common Standard, ensuring interoperability via standardized import and export formats.
Benefits and impact of adoption
The early adoption of the new model in DMP OPIDoR marked a shift toward more efficient and collaborative data management planning. It reduces researchers’ administrative load and encourages input from other stakeholders to support high-quality data stewardship. Alignment with the RDA DMP Common Standard ensures interoperability with other tools used by the French research community, and their European and international collaborators. This enables DMP content reuse and promotes open publication, fostering the spread of good practices across communities, institutions, and borders, ultimately contributing to a more robust and connected research data ecosystem.
What lessons did you learn?
The adoption process contributed to the discussions and decisions in the Active DMP groups, enabling early integration of recommendations. Our engagement has played a crucial role in delivering an effective service to the French research community. It ensures alignment with international best practices and contributes to the ultimate goal of “Turning FAIR principles into reality”.
Another lesson is the opportunity to connect with skilled, generous, and inspiring people. We fondly remember the late Sarah Jones, who was our guiding star from our earliest steps in the field.
About the Adopter(s)
Institut de l’Information Scientifique et Technique
The Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (Inist) is a research support unit of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). Its activities are aligned with both institutional and national open science policies.
Inist’s mission is to provide research units and research support services with tools and services to enhance the management, dissemination, discovery, reuse and analysis of scientific outputs. One of its three departments is dedicated to research data management and hosts a service called OPIDoR. OPIDoR stands for ‘Optimiser le Partage et de l’Interopérabilité des Données de la Recherche’, which translates as ‘Optimising the Sharing and Interoperability of Research Data’.
Amongst its services, OPIDoR offers DMP OPIDoR, an online tool designed to help researchers create data management plans (DMP). This tool is tailored to the needs of the French research community and its partners. It supports the implementation of funder, institutional and disciplinary community policies and recommendations. DMP OPIDoR is widely used with over 22 000 users and more than 28 000 plans created to date.
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