Prior to the commencement of a project, researchers are encouraged to document their Research Data Management Plan.
This guide provides detailed information to support researchers in managing and recording their research data procedures regarding ownership, collection, organisation, storage, backup, retention, disposal and access.
The UWA Policy on the Code of Conduct for Responsible Practice of Research now includes the following clause:
3.6 In all cases, The location and management arrangements for research data must be documented in a Data Management Plan stored in the University's records management system (TRIM).
3.7 Research data related to publications must be available for discussion with other researchers. The availability of such data must be recorded and managed through the UWA Research Repository. The six Creative Commons version 4.0 licenses recommended in AusGOAL are the preferred licenses to be used for Open Access. CC-BY is used wherever possible for sharing research data.
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Benefits
Effective data management will ensure the responsible conduct of research in several keys areas which are outlined in the diagram below.

Compliance:
Efficiency:
- Improves management of data and the research process.
- Encourages systematic documentation and descriptions of the research data.
- Provides guidelines and procedures ensuring consistency.
Security:
- Safeguards against data loss.
- Ensures confidentiality and ethical compliance.
- Guarantees legal compliance to intellectual property rights such as copyright.
Access:
- Allows researchers to validate and verify published results.
- Enables collaborative research opportunities thereby increasing the potential scale and scope of research.
- Prevents duplication of research within a particular field.
- Allows data sharing and future use when the data is preserved in retrievable formats.
- Increases citations for the researcher.
Quality:
- Allows for data replication or reproducibility.
- Increases the accuracy or reliability of the data.
- Ensures research data integrity.