Midwest Transportation Center

About the research

The Iowa Department of Transportation’s (DOT’s) data management plan (DMP) policy requires researchers to write a short document outlining their U.S. DOT’s public access requirement compliance plans and to follow through and report their publicly accessible research data outcomes.

The primary goal of this project was to develop and deliver training and materials to help researchers funded by the Iowa State Transportation Innovation Council (STIC) comply with the Iowa DOT policy requirements and write DMPs that meet or exceed the requirements.

The project team revised the Iowa DOT DMP guidance document to clean up some of the language and ensure that requirements were clearly stated. The team also completed curriculum development and workshop delivery during the funded period. They also developed and implemented an Iowa DOT template for use in DMPTool.

While assessment of the effectiveness of the project was unable to be completed due to a low number of participants,future iterations of the workshop with different assessment plans are recommended.