Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A DMP created in a tool like DMPRoadmap or Argos that exports as RDA-schema JSON-LD, with the project's ORCID iDs, ROR organisation ID, and dataset DOIs embedded as resolvable identifiers a repository system can ingest automatically
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A DMP submitted through a funder's structured online webform is not automatically machine-actionable just because it uses form fields instead of free text — unless it is exported in a schema another system can parse and act on (like RDA-JSON-LD), it is still a funder-specific structured document, not a maDMP
Editorial commentary
A machine-actionable data management plan (maDMP) is a DMP structured so its content can be read, queried, and acted on by software rather than existing only as narrative text for a human reviewer. The reference specification for what this means in practice is the RDA DMP Common Standard, published by the Research Data Alliance’s DMP Common Standards Working Group.
What makes it different from a narrative PDF
Unlike a narrative PDF, a maDMP is treated as a living, queryable artefact. Identifiers for projects, people (ORCID), organisations (ROR), datasets (DOI), and repositories can be embedded as resolvable references rather than free-text names, and the whole document can be exported and re-imported in a standard serialization (RDA-JSON-LD) that other systems can parse without custom scraping.
A structured form is not the same thing as machine-actionable
This distinction is easy to blur and worth stating explicitly: NIH’s 2026 structured “2026 Pilot” DMP format and NSF’s move (effective April 2026) from an uploaded PDF to a structured Research.gov webform are both real improvements over free-text narrative — but neither is RDA-schema-conformant or exportable as machine-actionable JSON-LD. They are funder-specific structured intake formats a human still has to fill in per-funder; a genuine maDMP is schema-conformant and importable by any system built to the same standard, not just one funder’s portal.
What it enables
Because a maDMP’s fields are resolvable and standardised, it supports use cases a narrative DMP cannot: auto-populating repository deposit metadata from the plan itself, monitoring funder compliance programmatically across a portfolio of awards, integrating budgeted data-management cost lines with finance systems, and reporting actual outputs against planned ones without manual re-entry. Tools implementing this standard include DMPRoadmap, Argos, DMPTool, DMPonline, and ezDMP.
References
- Miksa, Walk, Neish et al., ‘RDA DMP Common Standard for Machine-Actionable Data Management Plans’ (RDA, 2019).
Also known as
machine-readable DMP · active DMP (when also dynamic)
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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