Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A commitment to deposit anonymised survey data in UKDS under controlled access 12 months after project end.
- Is an instance
A commitment to release final code under MIT licence via Zenodo at project end.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A statement 'data will be available on reasonable request' (not operationally meaningful).
- Not an instance
A retention statement without an access statement.
Editorial commentary
A sharing commitment is the part of a Data Management Plan (DMP) that specifies which datasets will be shared, with whom, on what licence, on what timing relative to project end, and through which repository or infrastructure. It is the section funder open-data policies scrutinise most closely, and a usable one has a recognisable structure: dataset name, access category (open, restricted, controlled, or closed), licence (CC-BY 4.0 is the most common default for open datasets), embargo period if any, and the target repository. In a machine-actionable DMP (maDMP), these fields are encoded structurally rather than written as prose, which is what lets a funder or repository check compliance automatically at the point of deposit rather than by reading the narrative.
A research office typically drafts sharing commitments alongside the researcher at proposal stage, then checks them again at closeout against what was actually deposited (see DMP closeout phase). The most common weak spot an office sees is a commitment phrased as “data available on reasonable request” — funders including Horizon Europe (Annotated Grant Agreement, Article 17) and NIH (Data Management and Sharing Policy) increasingly treat that phrasing as not operationally meaningful, since it names no repository, licence, or timing.
How it differs from adjacent DMP concepts
- vs. Preservation commitment (in DMP) — sharing is about access; preservation is about survival. A dataset can be preserved without being shared (closed access, long-term retention) or shared without a long preservation horizon.
- vs. Retention period (in DMP) — retention is a duration; sharing is the fuller access specification the retention period sits inside.
References
- Horizon Europe Annotated Grant Agreement, Article 17; NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy.
Also known as
DMP access commitment · DMP sharing statement
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="Sharing commitment (in DMP)"
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