The Requirement
The NCST is required to comply with the requirements of the USDOT Public Access Plan (https://ntl.bts.gov/public-access), which establishes objectives to ensure public access to Publications and Digital Data Sets arising from DOT-managed research and development programs.
The Plan
To fulfill this requirement, the NCST established a Center-level Data Management Plan which describes our strategy for processing and archiving digital datasets resulting from NCST research in a repository that enables and allows for public access and sharing.
Project-level Data Management Plans
All NCST-funded researchers are required to comply with this Center-level data management plan (DMP) by developing a project-level data management plan for each project and submitting any final analysis datasets resulting from the funded project. Future funding for the PI is contingent on successful compliance with the Center- and project-level DMPs. More information on how to comply with the USDOT Public Access Plan, writing a DMP, managing rights to your data, and requesting an embargo are available here.
The NCST strongly encourages researchers to use DMPTool.org to develop their project-level DMP. The NCST has created a project-level DMP template that complies with the USDOT Public Access Plan.
How to create a NCST project DMP on DMPTool.org
PDF version of NCST project DMP template (not editable)
Depositing Your Data
The NCST encourages all researchers, whether in the University of California system or outside, to use the UC's data repository, Dryad, for archiving their final data from NCST research. Dryad meets the requirements of the USDOT Public Access Plan for repositories. Alternatively, researchers can opt to use other data repositories conformant with the USDOT Public Access Plan.
Dryad is an open and curated data publishing platform for researchers to share and publish their data. The California Digital Library and Dryad co-developed this service which is designed to be a simple data publication tool for researchers to meet funder and publisher mandates. Each dataset goes through a curation process to check for findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability.
Other features of Dryad include:
- Publish data through publisher and researcher workflow integrations.
- Link data with related articles, code, and other datasets.
- Permanent data citations with a DataCite DOI for attribution.
- Preservation in Core Trust Sealed Merritt repository.
- Standardized views, downloads, and citation metrics in accordance with Make Data Count.
Step-by-Step guide for submitting your data to Dryad
Documenting Your Archived Data and Fulfilling the Funding Requirement
All NCST-funded projects are required to produce a final research report or white paper. The NCST report template includes a section, "Data Summary", with prompts to help you satisfy this funding requirement and document what kind of data was collected and/or used in the study, the format of the data, how the data can be accessed, and any restrictions on how the data can be reused and redistributed. Examples of how to complete this section can be found in published NCST research reports and white papers.
Data Management Workshop & Dash Data Repository Demonstration
The NCST held a workshop for research grant recipients to provide information on the USDOT Public Access Plan and its requirements, guidance for writing a data management plan, best practices in managing data, and archiving and publishing data using the University of California’s Dash [now Dryad] data repository.