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Where to Share Your Data: share_your_data

Where to Share Your Data

How do you go about sharing data? You can:

  • Submit data into a discipline-specific repository or archive
  • Submit data to an institutional repository or archive
  • Post data to a project website
  • Submit data to a journal
  • License data and provide a suggested data citation

Data Repositories

Data repositories are an especially great way to share data as many of them offer long-term storage and preservation, regular backups, licensing arrangements, and online discovery and data promotion. Data repositories exist at the institutional, national, and discipline level. It's a good idea to check with your colleagues and peers to see whether there is a recommended repository in your field.

When choosing a repository, consider the following:

  • Who might want access your data, and where will they look?
  • Is there an appropriate discipline-specific repository?
  • What is the repository's access policy?
  • What is the repository's storage and preservation plan?
  • What kind of data are accepted?
  • Which metadata standards are required?
  • Does the repository charge any fees?

Examples of data repositories are:

Is there a repository in your field? What are the requirements for submitting data? Check the following lists of data repositories.

Licensing Data

If you decide to submit your data to a repository, it is a good idea to license your data. Licensing data allows researchers to clearly state how they want their data to be used, and makes it easier for others to reuse the data. While data themselves do not fall under copyright protection, datasets and databases do, and the easiest way to protect your copyright while allowing access is by attaching a license.

Before deciding what license to use, you must first ensure that you yourself have permission to license the data, for only the rights holder can grant a license. Once you are sure you can grant a license, you must choose which license to apply. Make sure to check with your organization or repository as they might recommend a certain license or provide one for you.

The most common data licenses are from Creative Commons and Open Data Commons. Both of these organizations have standard sets of licenses that allow data to be used in different ways.

Alternatively, you can apply a waiver to place your data in the public domain and allow free and unrestricted access. The Creative Commons Zero license (CC0) is the most popular copyright waiver.

For more information:

Coordinator, Research Services & Digital Strategies

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Jordan Bass
Contact:
204-977-5600
Subjects: Data