If this sounds like a recipe for data management chaos:

"I will store all data on at least one, and possibly up to 50, hard drives in my lab. The directory structure will be custom, not self-explanatory, and in no way documented or described. Students working with the data will be encouraged to make their own copies and modify them as they please, in order to ensure that no one can ever figure out what the actual real raw data is. Backups will rarely, if ever, be done."

that's the point.

The posting My Data Management Plan - A Satire by C. Titus Brown, an Assistant Professor in Computer Science and Biology at Michigan State University, is meant to send up the new process expected by the US National Science Foundation.

However, comments on the posting show that the satire might not be quite as pointed as it might be.

"That's no satire... It's S O P," says one commenter.

"... it appears you have very precise and detailed information regarding our data management plan!" says another.

UQ researchers who wish to do better can contact the Library's Research Information Service. We are only too happy to help you draw up a basic plan.