Find the rubric by Whitmire et al. here and a scoresheet for the rubric here. Use this rubric to evaluate the data management plan by Fisher and Nading (2016) here. (Alternatively, when working in a group or with a partner, you can exchange DMPs and assess each other’s). For now, use the example language in the rubric to score the DMP.
As you work through the rubric, try to not just think about what you would improve about the DMP, but also where the rubric itself might fall short.
You can look at a rubric for the Fisher and Nading data management plan that we filled out here. Don’t expect to have the exact same assessment throughout, but look again at areas where you disagree with our assessment.
The most important weakness of the rubric is that it assesses the mere presence of a topic, not the quality of the response. For example, “I will e-mail my data to interested researchers” would qualify as a full score to question 4.2, but is clearly not a satisfactory answer. Moreover, given NSF’s interest in DMPs, they focus heavily on the sharing and dissemination component, but make little mention of some of the earlier, crucial issues, such as back-up or personnel.