Costing Data Management

Costs for data management may be in time and effort as well as physical resources  such as hardware and software. The UK Data Archive guide to Managing and Sharing Data suggests choosing one of two approaches for costing data management at the start of a research project or for a funding application:

• Pricing all data-related activities for the entire data lifecycle (creation, sharing and preservation) to calculate a total cost for data generation.
• Costing all the additional expenses (beyond what would be the standard research procedures and practices) that will be incurred to make the data shareable. The UK Data Archive has developed a costing tool for this option (accessed from their website) which considers all the possible steps and costs that may need to be included.