Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
An institutional benchmarking study scoring 100 DMPs against the DCC rubric.
- Is an instance
A funder pilot programme requiring assessed DMPs from all renewing grantees.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A free-text comment on a DMP draft (review, not assessment).
- Not an instance
A funder's pass/fail compliance check.
Editorial commentary
DMP assessment is the structured rating of a Data Management Plan (DMP) against a published rubric, producing a comparable score across many plans rather than free-text commentary on one. Frameworks such as the Digital Curation Centre’s DMP rubric, the FAIR-Aware DMP assessment, and the Belmont Forum DMP rubric typically score each topic area (data description, storage, sharing, preservation, responsibilities) on a numeric scale, sometimes with weighted categories, so that scores can be aggregated or compared across a portfolio of grants.
Where a review is conversational and specific to one plan, assessment is comparative and often longitudinal — a research office might use it to benchmark 100 DMPs across a funding round, to track whether plan quality is improving year over year, or as the basis for a capacity-building programme aimed at the departments scoring lowest. A funder running a pilot DMP-quality initiative is more likely to require assessed (scored) plans from renewing grantees than to promise individual narrative feedback on each one.
How it differs from adjacent DMP concepts
- vs. DMP review — review is qualitative feedback on one plan; assessment produces a comparable score, usually across many plans.
- vs. DMP compliance check — a compliance check is a pass/fail structural gate; an assessment is a graded score intended to support comparison and improvement over time, not a gate.
References
- Digital Curation Centre DMP rubric; Belmont Forum DMP guidance.
Checking this against the current guidance
Who actually conducts a DMP assessment after award, and how thoroughly, differs by funder. The answer depends on which funder you are working to,
and the page above states the general rule.
It answers with its sources linked, so you can open each one and check it yourself, and it says so when our sources don’t cover a question. Two questions a day are free while you are signed out, no
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Frequently asked questions
Is a DMP assessment the same as peer review of the DMP?
No. Peer review happens at the proposal stage as part of merit review; a DMP assessment is typically a compliance-focused check conducted after award, by the institution or the funder, rather than a scientific evaluation.
How often does a DMP get reassessed during an award?
This varies by funder — some check only at proposal and closeout, others require an assessment at each annual or continuation report — so the DMP itself should state the institution’s own review cadence if the funder doesn’t set one.
What triggers an unscheduled DMP assessment?
A change in data type, a data breach or loss incident, or a funder audit can all trigger an assessment outside the normal reporting cycle.
Also known as
DMP rubric · DMP scoring
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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