As part of International Open Access Week this blog post will give a brief overview of the why, how and when of sharing research data. A more in depth discussion on research data management can be found on the Library’s Research Data Management page here.
The ‘why’ of sharing research data. There are two main elements to this.
Let’s start with the stick.
With the increasing international momentum towards open science, there is growing emphasis on openly sharing data and publications. The regulatory environment (government initiatives, funders’ requirements and institutional policies (including UoP)) generally require that research data underpinning research outputs are made publicly and openly accessible in a timely manner, subject to any legal or ethical restrictions.
Now the carrot.
Sharing research data enables the widest benefits to be gained from the data – for other researchers, businesses and the wider benefit to society at large. Given that the majority of research is funded with public money, it’s only reasonable to share the data produced.
Sharing research data also has direct benefits to you:
- For research integrity and transparency – it allows you to verify the processes and conclusions drawn by other researchers (and likewise allows other researchers to verify your research).
- It makes your outputs more visible and potentially improves citation rates.
- It enables collaboration by facilitating the reuse and sharing of data, and avoiding the duplication of work were possible.
The ‘how’ of sharing research data…
Data underpinning outputs should be made available via a suitable repository. Ideally your data would find a home in a suitable subject-related repository. If this isn’t appropriate then a general purpose repository, including our own Pure repository, should be used.
To deposit data to Pure please follow the Adding Datasets guidance.
Once the data deposit has been validated you will be given a Digital Object Identifier (DOI – a permanent link to the data). This DOI will then form part of the Data Availability Statement in the relevant publication(s).
(A DOI for data held in an external repository should be added Pure so that the publication and data are together.)
Data Availability Statements.
Every publication should include a brief statement that indicates how the data can be accessed, or whether there are restrictions on sharing the data, or indeed if there are no research data associated with the publication.
Finally, the ‘when’…
Ideally the data should be deposited and DOI obtained early enough so that the DOI information can be included in the publication.
For further advice on sharing data please contact the Research Outputs Team – researchdata@port.ac.uk.
Research and Innovation Services 