#  Executive Summary

The overall objective of this deliverable is to provide an initial Data
Management Plan that describes what Data will be generated during the project
execution, including formats and structure, and how the data

(including meta-data) will be collected, stored, and made accessible. This
deliverable is mandatory since AfriAlliance participates in the Pilot
initiative from the European Commission on Open Data. The deliverable follows
the guidelines on FAIR Data Management in Horizon 2020, which prescribes the
inclusion of specific elements in the plan, including: 1) a summary of the
data being collected; 2) methods for making sure data are FAIR (findable,
accessible, interoperable, re-usable); 3) resources to be allocated; 4)
security of data, as well as any other aspects. The document describes the
_initial_ plans for Data Management and will be revised as soon as additional
elements regarding Data Management have been identified in the course of the
implementation of the AfriAlliance project.

#  AfriAlliance Data Summary

AfriAlliance is a Coordination and Support Action project which nevertheless
consists of several distinct research activities to achieve its objectives,
such as studies into the motivations to participate in Working Groups in an
African context (WP1), specific short-term social innovation needs (WP2), the
barriers for online knowledge sharing (WP3) and an inventory of current
monitoring and forecasting efforts (WP4).

As a Coordination and Support Action, one of the main objectives of the
project is to share as broadly as possible any results generated by the
project with the broad water sector community, in particular with experts and
organizations active in the field of water and climate. This counts for both
data and metadata.

The Data Management Plan deliverable complements the previously submitted
Project Information Strategy deliverable, with the understanding that data
generated during the project are a subset of the overall information that will
be managed during the project (ref. D6.3, page 11). In particular, the scope
of the Data Management Plan concerns a subset of information mentioned in
Table 1 of Deliverable 6.3, an extract of which is repeated below:

**Table 1 AfriAlliance Information (Data) (extract from Deliverable D6.3)**  
  
<table>  
<tr>  
<th>

Type of

Information

</th>  
<th>

Owner

</th>  
<th>

Access

Rights

</th>  
<th>

Repository

</th>  
<th>

Format

Used

</th>  
<th>

Standards

Used

</th>  
<th>

Quality

Control

</th>  
<th>

Purpose / Use

</th> </tr>  
<tr>  
<td>

Input Data (e.g. surveys information)

</td>  
<td>

Task

Leaders

</td>  
<td>

Partners

</td>  
<td>

ProjectPlace

</td>  
<td>

Different

</td>  
<td>

Customized format (AA identity)

</td>  
<td>

Content and format by WP leaders, with advise by PMT

</td>  
<td>

Background data for further elaboration into Task deliverables

</td> </tr>  
<tr>  
<td>

Output Data (reports, papers, policy notes)

(*)

</td>  
<td>

Task

Leaders

</td>  
<td>

Open Access

</td>  
<td>

ProjectPlace, Website

</td>  
<td>

MS

Word, printed copies

</td>  
<td>

Customized format (AA identity)

</td>  
<td>

Content and format by WP leaders, with advise by PMT

</td>  
<td>

AfriAlliance information to be shared within the platform and to the broad
water sector

</td> </tr> </table>

Ethical aspects concerning the plan are covered in the Ethical aspects
deliverable (D7.1 – 7.3)

To comply with the Horizon 2020 Open Research Data Pilot, AfriAlliance will
make available data potentially useful for others as well as all aspects that
are needed to replicate the undertaken research. In this context, the
following types of data can be distinguished (see Table 1).

**Table 2 Summary of AfriAlliance Data**  
  
<table>  
<tr>  
<th>

Type of data

</th>  
<th>

Description

</th>  
<th>

AfriAlliance WP/tasks

</th> </tr>  
<tr>  
<td>

Empirical data

</td>  
<td>

The data (set) needed to validate results of scientific efforts.

</td>  
<td>

WP1: data from survey of motivations to participate in Working Groups and data
from surveys for the Social Network Analysis

WP2: data from interviews and Focus Group on short-term social innovation
needs

WP3: data from investigation of barriers and obstacles for online knowledge
sharing

WP4: inventory of current monitoring and forecasting efforts

</td> </tr>  
<tr>  
<td>

Associated metadata

</td>  
<td>

The dataset’s creator, title, year of publication, repository, identifier etc.
based on the ISO 19157 standard.

</td>  
<td>

WP1-WP4

Questionnaire, interviews and user-driven metadata entry through geoportal)

</td> </tr>  
<tr>  
<td>

Documentation

</td>  
<td>

Such as code books, informed consent forms, etc.: these aspects are domain-
dependent and important for understanding the data and combining them with
other data sources.

</td>  
<td>

WP1-WP4

Questionnaire, interviews and user-driven metadata entry through geoportal.

</td> </tr>  
<tr>  
<td>

Methods &

tools

</td>  
<td>

(Information about) the software, hardware, tools, syntax queries, machine
configurations – i.e. domain-dependent aspects that are important for using
the data.

</td>  
<td>

Data collection instruments

WP1: questionnaire and software to analyse and visualise the relationships
between stakeholders and their level of connectedness (SNA Analysis)

WP2: questionnaire, Focus Group Discussion protocol)

WP3: questionnaire, Focus Group Discussion protocol

WP4: search terms and questionnaire, interviews and user-driven metadata entry
and search keywords through the AA geoportal.

</td> </tr> </table>

All generated data will use widely adopted data formats, including but not
limited to:

  * Basic Data formats: CSV, XLS, XML 

  

  * Aggregated Data / Meta-data: PDF, HTM, MS files 

  

Concerning Monitoring and Forecasting tools (WP4), the project will make
extensive use of existing data and repositories. In fact, the essence of the
data management concerning M&F tools is a more effective / more comprehensive
use of existing data rather than the generation of new (source) data.

Existing data which is going to be used for that purpose stems from many
different sources, especially generated locally in Africa.

#  AfriAlliance FAIR Data

AfriAlliance will follow the FAIR approach to data, i.e. data will be managed
in order to make them:

  * Findable 

  

  * Accessible 

  

  * Interoperable 

  

  * Reusable 

  

##  Making data findable, including provisions for metadata

###  Discoverability of Data

Data generated in AfriAlliance will be available (for external use) via the
following resources (ref Table 1):

  * AfriAlliance Website 

  

  * Akvo RSR (Really Simple Reporting) tool 

  

  * Web Catalog Service (WCS) 

  

The Website will include most of the (aggregated and summarised) data
generated during the project, including links to the WCS tool which use
existing data.

The Akvo RSR tool will provide overall and summarised information about the
project, including results and impact. The tool will follow the International
Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) standard for reporting.

The WCS will contain in particular all meta-data information concerning
existing data used by the foreseen improved monitoring and forecasting tool.

###  Identifiability of Data

AfriAlliance will make use of repositories assigning persistent IDs to data to
allow easy finding (and citing) of AfriAlliance data.

###  Naming Conventions

All names given to AfriAlliance Data will be named according to the following
naming convention:

  * Basic Data: AA WPx <name of data> -<date generated>-version 

  

  * Meta Data: AfriAlliance <Descriptive Name of Data>-name generated-version 

  

###  Keywords

Data will be assigned relevant keywords to make them findable (e.g. through
internet browsing). Such keywords may vary depending on the Work Package where
data belong to.

###  Versioning

All data (and data sets) will clearly mention the version (indicated both in
the naming and within the information included in the data) as long as contact
information (owner of the generated or aggregated data set).

###  Standards

Data, and in particular meta-data, will follow an identified standard for
meta-data creation. Although there are many different standards, the initial
preference of the consortium is to follow ISO 19157 as it is specifically
adopted to ensure quality of geographic information, which is the core of
AfriAlliance data (used by the foreseen WCS). Several ISO standards exist and
ISO 19157 is a recent one, also adopted by INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial
Information in Europe) Directive and national implementations, and includes
metadata quality control mechanisms.

##  Making Data Openly Accessible

###  Data Openly Accessible

AfriAlliance will make all data generated by the project available, with the
exception of basic data with ethics constraints which will be kept within the
consortium and only available in ProjectPlace. WP4 data, the WCS and the
geoportal will be freely available with open access to all the metadata and
workflows. It must be noted that the WCS will contain little (only sample)
real hard data.

###  Modalities for Sharing Data

All data generated will be available in the resources mentioned in 2.1.1. In
particular, data will be made available with the following modalities:

Website: all generated data will have an easily identified section on the
website where most of the data will be posted. The website will also include
reference to IATI standard data, and will therefore be the main source to
retrieve also general data of the project. Moreover, an easily findable
reference will be made to access the WCS tool.

The WCS tool being a web-based application, will exist also as “standalone”
resource (with a clear reference to AfriAlliance project), which will be
designed to get as many hits as possible with the most common web browsing
modalities.

###  Methods and tools needed to access data

Apart from widely known access methods (internet search based), it is
important to specifically mention that the WCS software source code will be
made available in an open source repository. The initial selection of the
consortium for this purpose is the Github resource.

Search terms and user-driven metadata entry and search key-words will be made
available through the AA WP4 geoportal. Entry search keywords will be rather
simple words such as for example: monthly rainfall, country, and other water-
and climate related searches, available from pre-coded drop down menus.

###  Data repositories

Most of the data generated will be stored in a web-based repository. This
includes the WP4 geoportal which will contain only metadata, which are web-
based information on data sources, data quality, etc.

###  Access to Data

No restrictions will apply, apart from the subset of source data (i.e. data
from questionnaires) whose use is restricted according to the Ethics
requirements.

##  Making data interoperable

Interoperability of data is very important in AfriAlliance, especially in
relation to the geoportal.

The interoperability principle behind WP4 data is based on the concept of
“volunteered geographic information” (VGI), which is the harnessing of tools
to create, assemble, and disseminate geographic data provided voluntarily by
individuals (Goodchild, 2007). VGI is a special case of a broader phenomenon
known as user-generated content. Common standards and methodologies following
the general principle will be adopted, and will be further specified in
updated revisions of the plan.

##  Owners and Access Rights

###  Data Licence

Most of the data generated in AfriAlliance will be open source, licenced under
the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY), version 4.0, in order to
make it possible for others to mine, exploit and reproduce the data.

WP4 geoportal WCS will be open source licenced using the GNU General Public
License Version 2 (June 1991) and the portal user guide documentation will be
provided and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0
License. Minor changes can be adopted in case it is required by certain
Partners needs/regulations; those cases will be properly documented.

###  Data Re-use

No restrictions will apply for the re-use of Data, also no restriction in
time.

###  Third Parties Usage

AfriAlliance will make data publicly available to Third Parties, under the
condition that the source is referenced according to indications provided in
the data.

###  Data Quality Assurance

Generally speaking, AfriAlliance will follow the quality assurance guidelines
provided in Deliverable 6.3 (Project Information Management strategy) to
ensure proper quality of data. With particular reference to quality of
metadata, the ISO19157 standard guidelines will be followed.

###  Availability in Time

In principle, data will be available indefinitely

#  Allocation of Resources for Data Management

##  Data Management Costs

Costs related to generating, storing, and distribution of data are properly
taken in consideration in the respective Work Package where data specified in
Table 2 will be collected.

In WP2, data generated from the network analysis as well as Action Groups
results will be covered by both staff time and other direct costs directly
allocated to those activities

Dissemination material, which can be considered a particular subset of output
data in a CSA, has a specific budget line allocated to the respective WP
leader.

As regards data managed in WP4, Web Services and associated resources like
dissemination packages, and other production costs, have been allocated a
substantial budget (ref. DoA AfriAlliance for details).

##  Data Ownership

Ownership of data is largely determined by Work Package Ownership. A more
specific attribution of ownership is indicated in Table 1 above.

##  Long Term Preservation Costs

Long term preservation costs relates to costs for server/hosting, and time for
updating data formats. Those costs are being included in the concerned WP
budgets.

#  Data Security

Data Security aspects are covered in D7.1-3 (ethics).

#  Other

The AfriAlliance Data Management Plan follows largely the guidelines (and
template) recommended by Horizon 2020 in the framework of the Open Data
programme of the European Commission.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that any additional internal guidelines in
terms of Information Management practices and IPR policies that are currently
followed (or will be approved in the future) in the Coordinator’s organization
(UNESCO-IHE) will be integrated, as appropriate, as part of the plan, after
previous discussion and agreement with the consortium members. Equally, in
case any regulations or policy prevailing in any organization of the
consortium, and any additional external practice/policy/standard, which
becomes relevant for the plan, will be integrated in further revisions of the
plan.