35 Association of Research Libraries Research Library Issues 298 2019 Data Management Planning Services The final service emerging at NAL is a data management planning service. Although planning for data management has long been recognized as an essential part of the data life cycle,23 many researchers in agriculture have only recently encountered funder requirements for formal data management plans (DMPs) to be submitted with proposals (for example, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture24). As we develop this service, the hypotheses to test are as follows: 1. Many agricultural researchers need a review service, but some of them have access to such services through their institutional libraries. 2. Data curators are well positioned and have the capacity to perform this service. 3. The service will improve the quality of data management plans and improve NAL’s ability to anticipate the infrastructure it must supply as part of the plans. Our initial incarnation of the service requests that researchers prepare a draft according to the instructions provided by their funder, and submit that draft to us by email. We then circulate the draft among data curators and relevant subject-matter experts, and provide recommended changes and comments by email. In addition to assistance with specific funder instructions, we provide guidance (with examples) on the NAL website.25 This service is being developed in close cooperation with University of Maryland, other AgNIC members, and the Office of National Programs in USDA ARS. Together we are developing and delivering educational webinars tailored to agricultural researchers. As with data curation and data science, data management planning is recognized as part of the data life cycle and all three activities benefit from consideration of the others. For example, a recent data science project was to use natural language processing to establish a baseline in DMP content in a pilot round of USDA ARS project plans. By reviewing DMPs,
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