Mary O’Brien Uhlmansiek Joins the MAP Pilot Project

By Mary O’Brien Uhlmansiek, Project Director, The Association of Research Libraries (ARL)

This February, I joined the MAP Pilot team as Project Director, serving in a joint position with The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and the California Digital Library (CDL). In this role, I will support ten research libraries in our pilot project, exploring ways to advance institutional coordination around machine-actionable data management and sharing plans (maDMSPs). The project will compile resources for research workflow improvements utilizing maDMSPs, such as for tracking compliance with funder data-sharing requirements or to initiate internal research infrastructure requests upon grant award, for example. Our pilot partners will also help drive improvements in the DMP Tool itself, providing valuable software testing and feedback as new interoperability features are developed, and using real-world examples to ensure the application will meet the needs of researchers and stakeholders alike.

Through my experiences serving as a data and repository manager for sensitive health-related information, in managing research software adoption and implementation at a large medical university, and as a facilitator for the adoption of outputs and recommendations at the Research Data Alliance, I can see the potential for the DMP Tool to provide critical research infrastructure for researchers and administrators alike as they navigate new data-sharing requirements from funders. I am excited to work with the project PIs, Cynthia Hudson Vitale and Maria Praetzellis, and the many other dedicated professionals from research library organizations in the open science movement. Projects such as the MAP Pilot are building blocks for the transition to more open science, and I look forward to the dissemination of the teams’ outputs to aid research institutions in adopting and continuing this important work. 

If you would like to learn more about maDMSPs or to get involved in future work in this area, please consider joining a group such as the Active Data Management Plans Interest Group at the Research Data Alliance.