Backed by Y CombinatorThree documents and three sheets that check what each dataset's consent or agreement actually allows before the plan promises to share it.
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What you get
Pack of 6 files: 3 documents, 3 spreadsheets
Research Data Management Plan TemplateConsent Constraint Map
| Dataset | Sharing Status |
|---|---|
| Household survey, de-identified | Public deposit |
| State health department extract | Not shared |
The second row is blocked by the department's own data use agreement, not by anything participant consent says.
NIH's 2026 Data Management and Sharing Plan format asks one yes or no on whether data will be shared, plus a single 300-word paragraph, Element 4, to hold every limitation across the whole project. Johns Hopkins' own walkthrough of the DMPTool, the guide researchers are pointed to for writing that paragraph, describes three free-text boxes for the whole plan's access and reuse considerations, however many differently shaped datasets the project actually produces.
A study rarely produces one kind of data. This pack is three documents and three sheets built around Consent Constraint Map. It checks what each dataset's own consent language, or any third-party data use agreement governing it, actually allows before Data Management Plan or Sharing Statement states a sharing answer for it. A limitation that applies to one dataset out of four does not get generalized to the other three, or dropped because a single paragraph had no room left for it.
In one worked example, a household-access study across three counties produces four datasets under one IRB approval. 450 survey responses are cleared for public deposit, and 22 staff interviews are cleared for publication excerpts only. A travel-time matrix is cleared for county-level aggregates only, and a state health department's linked extract, covering 410 of those households, is blocked from redistribution entirely by the department's own data use agreement. Four rows, four answers, the same discipline an ethics application runs section by section before a board ever sees it.
Dataset RegisterFour datasets under one IRB approval, one row each.
| Dataset | Format | Records |
|---|---|---|
| Household survey | CSV / SPSS | 450 households |
| Staff interviews | Audio + transcript | 22 participants |
| Travel-time matrix | GIS / CSV | 450 households by 6 clinics |
| State extract | CSV | 410 of 450 households |
Same approval, same consent process for three of the four. The fourth is a linkage with a second, separate consent.
Consent Constraint MapFour rows, four sharing answers, checked before either document is drafted.
| Dataset | Sharing Status | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Household survey | Public deposit | Consent names public deposit explicitly |
| Staff interviews | Not shared | Consent offered excerpt use only |
| Travel-time matrix | Aggregate only | Consent excludes point-level location |
| State extract | Not shared | Blocked by the state's own data use agreement |
The fourth row is not a consent question at all. The department's agreement controls regardless of what participants agreed to.
Deposit ChecklistOnly one of the four datasets ever reaches this sheet.
| Step | Applies To | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Small-cell suppression confirmed | Household survey | Complete |
| Accession number received | Household survey | Not started |
| Any deposit step | Interviews, extract | Not applicable |
Not applicable is a checked answer here, not a blank one. The other three datasets were never headed for a repository.
Every dataset the study collects or receives, including a linked administrative extract that arrived through an agreement rather than a consent form, with its format, its record count and who is named in it.
One row per dataset, grading what its own consent language or any governing agreement actually allows: public deposit, restricted access, aggregate only, or not shared, with the specific reason named rather than assumed.
De-identification and small-cell suppression confirmed against the actual data before a repository, standard or licence is chosen, the same discipline a codebook applies to a variable rather than a whole file.
Built against the current funder element structure, with the sharing answer written dataset by dataset rather than rounded to whichever single word is easiest to submit. The standalone version a grant proposal's own one-page plan only sketches before its datasets are actually defined.
The publication-facing paragraph a journal's data availability section asks for, matched to Consent Constraint Map at the moment of drafting rather than copied from the funder's plan.
A retention period by record type, since a raw identifiable file and its de-identified deposit copy are rarely owed to the same party for the same length of time.
The standing space rule every prompt reads first: no sentence in the plan, the statement or the note may state a sharing status with no matching row behind it.
Open the pack in River and the agent builds the register and the constraint map with you, or download the three Word documents and three CSV sheets instantly, filled in with the worked example.
Every dataset, its format, roughly how many records, and what the consent language or any data-sharing agreement says about it specifically, not a general impression of what the study promised.
Consent Constraint Map grades each dataset public deposit, restricted, aggregate only, or not shared, with the governing document named, before Data Management Plan or Sharing Statement is written.
Only a dataset the constraint map actually clears advances past it, and the checklist is not complete until a real accession number exists and is copied into Sharing Statement.
Yes. Download the whole pack as Word documents and CSV sheets with no signup and no credit card. Edit with AI is a separate, optional path that has the agent build the register and the plan with you. The template library holds every other pack this research catalog ships.
Word documents for Data Management Plan, Sharing Statement and Retention Note, and CSV for Dataset Register, Consent Constraint Map and Deposit Checklist, in one zip. They open in Word, Excel, Google Docs and Sheets with nothing to convert.
Yes. NSF's own Data Management and Sharing Plan tool is organized by data or research product category, and requires any exception to sharing to be justified within it. Consent Constraint Map produces exactly that justification, dataset by dataset, whichever funder's form it ends up in.
Common with linked administrative data, and Dataset Register is built to catch it. A data use agreement with the outside party that supplied it still governs, independently of consent, and Consent Constraint Map names that agreement as the basis rather than leaving the row blank.
Because the participant was never a party to that agreement. A state agency or a partner organization can restrict redistribution of its own records on terms that consent cannot override, and the stricter of the two governs regardless of which one a plan's author assumed controlled.
No. An IRB or ethics application covers what a board must approve before data collection starts. This pack governs what happens to the data once it exists, for the funder's plan and the eventual publication, and the two documents are checked against each other, not merged into one.
That sentence is not a policy, since it names no format, no access terms and no reviewer. Sharing Statement instead states, per dataset, what is available, where, and under what terms, or plainly that nothing is available and why, which is what a reader can actually act on.
Written by
Co-founder & CEO, River
Chandler has spent the last six years working in AI, building tools for millions of users and Fortune 100 companies. In 2025, he co-founded River to build a new kind of operating system for AI agents.
Send what the study collects, dataset by dataset. Consent Constraint Map checks each one before Data Management Plan or Sharing Statement states an answer for it.
Edit with AI