Research Data Management: For Thesis Supervisors

All research postgraduate (RPg) students and taught doctoral students admitted in 2025/26 or thereafter should submit a DMP.  

PhD and taught doctoral students (excluding Doctor of Nursing students) must submit a DMP prior to completing the candidacy fulfillment process. The Thesis Supervisor and the Head of Graduate Division will confirm the DMP completion when they sign off the document “Notification of Fulfilment of Candidacy Requirements” for individual students.

M.Phil. and Doctor of Nursing students are expected to complete their DMP submission within the first year of study. Compliance will be checked during the graduation assessment.

Upon submission of the final version of their thesis/portfolio, students are required to share their finalized DMP via the DMPTool platform, unless an embargo has been granted. In alignment with the policy on thesis/portfolio confidentiality, students may choose from two data-sharing options: (1) Two-year restricted access (automatically applied and aligned with that of the thesis embargo period). (2) Immediate release.

A friendly FYI: Click the embedded images below to view them in full size.

1. Thesis Supervisors will review their students’ DMP directly in DMPTool. Note that Thesis Supervisors will receive an email notification from DMPTool once a student adds them as a collaborator of their DMP. Refer to this guide on how to log into DMPTool with your CUHK OnePass credentials: https://libguides.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/dmp/dmptool.

• Thesis Supervisors of PhD and taught doctoral students (excluding Doctor of Nursing students) must acknowledge the student's completion of a DMP in the returned form “Notification of Fulfilment of Candidacy Requirements”.
• Thesis Supervisors of MPhil and Doctor of Nursing students will conduct the DMP compliance check during the graduation assessment for their students.   

2. Thesis Supervisors will discuss with their students and determine an appropriate embargo period for their DMP, based on the sensitivity and confidentiality of the research data described in the plan. Thesis Supervisors must also ensure that the agreed DMP sharing schedule is clearly indicated in the returned form “Submission of Final Version of Thesis for Archive/Publication”.

3. Upon submission of the final version of thesis/portfolio, Thesis Supervisors will check that the student has finalized their DMP on the DMPTool platform.

Note: For plans under embargo, the Library will ensure the visibility is changed to Organization once the embargo period has ended.

All RPgs and taught doctoral students admitted in 2025/26 or thereafter are strongly encouraged to preserve their research data, and wherever possible, share it in the CUHK Research Data Repository (RDR) or another trusted open data repository that provides a valid Digital Object Identifier (DOI) or another form of permanent identifier. Research data being shared should fulfill the following criteria:

• Data should be structured and ready for validation of research results and data reuse;
• Sensitive information should have been properly handled;
• Hand-written data is not encouraged for data deposit.

Students are strongly encouraged to deposit their datasets in the CUHK RDR. Alternatively, they may choose an open data repository that meets the TRUST principles: Transparency, Responsibility, User focus, Sustainability, and Technology. Below is a list of recommended generalist data repositories suitable for students to share their datasets in. Additionally, students may explore re3data.org (Registry of Research Data Repositories) to identify a suitable 'domain-specific' home for their datasets.

• Zenodo is operated by the CERN’s data centre to promote long-term preservation and advance the open science movement across Europe.
• OSF (Open Science Framework) is a free and open-source platform that supports researchers throughout their entire project lifecycle in open science best practices. 
• Dryad is an open data publishing platform and community committed to making research data freely available and encouraging its routine reuse.

If a student intends to make his/her dataset(s) public, s/he should provide the DOI or permanent identifier for the dataset(s) in the returned form “Submission of Final Version of Thesis for Archive/Publication”.

Students are responsible for setting or updating the embargo period for their data in the selected data repository. Students are also responsible for ensuring that their embargoed data will be made publicly available once the embargo period expires. 

A friendly FYI: Click the embedded images below to view them in full size.

1. Thesis Supervisors will review students’ unpublished research datasets via the provided Private URL to ensure that no sensitive or confidential data is included in the submission.

2. Thesis Supervisors will work with students to determine an appropriate embargo period for the research dataset, based on the sensitivity and confidentiality of the data. They are also responsible for verifying that students have correctly applied the agreed embargo period to each file in the dataset.

3. Thesis Supervisors are responsible for confirming the appropriate DOI or permanent identifier for their students’ dataset, if intended to be made public, are marked in the returned form “Submission of Final Version of Thesis for Archive/Publication”.