Publishing and Sharing Data

The “data journal” is an emerging alternative. In data journals the data is the focus and the article is descriptive of the data set. This enables the data to be cited in a very familiar form.

• F1000Research – F1000Research is an open research publishing Platform for researchers in all subject areas.
• GigaScience – GigaScience is an open access, open data, open peer-review journal focusing on ‘big data’ research from the life and biomedical sciences.
• Scientific data – Scientific Data is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal for descriptions of datasets, and research that advances the sharing and reuse of scientific data. 

Disciplinary repositories offer high visibility within a particular field. Not all repositories are committed to long-term preservation of data, and their mission and focus may change over time.  Some, are only available to subscribers.

Not all repositories listed necessarily take researcher-produced datasets where you can share your data. Moreover, not all repositories listed can ensure long-term preservation of your data; contact each one for more details. 

• Cambridge Structural Database – Established in 1965, the CSD is the world’s repository for small-molecule organic and metal-organic crystal structures. Containing the results of over half-a-million x-ray and neutron diffraction analyses this unique database of accurate 3D structures has become an essential resource to scientists around the world.
• DataCite – A not-for-profit organization which aims to establish easier access to research data on the Internet; increase acceptance of research data as legitimate, citable contributions to the scholarly record; and supports data archiving that will permit results to be verified and re-purposed for future study. DataCite makes research more effective by connecting research outputs and resources–from data and preprints to images and samples. DataCite supports the creation and management of DOIs and metadata records, enhance research workflows with service integration, and enable the discovery and reuse of research outputs and resources.
• DataONE – A community driven program providing access to data across multiple member repositories, supporting enhanced search and discovery of Earth and environmental data. DataONE promotes best practices in data management through responsive educational resources and materials. DataONE envisions researchers, educators, and the public using DataONE to better understand and conserve life on earth and the environment that sustains it.
• DRYAD – Dryad is an open data publishing platform and a community committed to the open availability and routine re-use of all research data.
• GenBank – GenBank ^® is the NIH genetic sequence database, an annotated collection of all publicly available DNA sequences (Nucleic Acids Research, 2013 Jan;41(D1):D36-42). GenBank is part of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration, which comprises the DNA DataBank of Japan (DDBJ), the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA), and GenBank at NCBI. These three organizations exchange data on a daily basis.
• ICPSR – The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research is an international consortium of more than 810 academic institutions and research organizations. ICPSR provides leadership and training in data access, curation, and methods of analysis for the social science research community. The ICPSR maintains a data archive of more than 350,000 files of research in the social and behavioral sciences. It hosts 23 specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, terrorism, and other fields.
• NSSDAC – The NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive serves as the permanent archive for NASA space science mission data. “Space science” means astronomy and astrophysics, solar and space plasma physics, and planetary and lunar science. As permanent archive, NSSDCA teams with NASA’s discipline-specific space science “active archives” which provide access to data to researchers and, in some cases, to the general public. NSSDCA also serves as NASA’s permanent archive for space physics mission data. It provides access to several geophysical models and to data from some non-NASA mission data.
• NIH-Supported Data Sharing Resources – This page shows a list of NIH-supported data repositories that accept submissions of appropriate data from NIH-funded investigators.
• re3data.org – The Registry of Research Data Repositories is a global registry of research data repositories from different academic disciplines.
• Scientific Data’s list of recommended repositories – Scientific Data mandates the release of datasets but do not themselves host data. Instead, they ask authors to submit datasets to an appropriate public data repository. This is their list of recommended data repositories.

The mission of an institutional repository is to permanently preserve the scholarly output of the institution.  Here at the Missouri University of Science and Technology our institutional repository is know as Scholars’ Mine. Scholars’  Mine serves this function, and preserves text, audio, video, data and more.  Scholars’ Mine is designed to meet the needs of scholars in all disciplines, and operates according to widely accepted standards for preservation and access.

Some journals publish data associated with their published articles. This will provide good visibility, but is often tied to a journal subscription, limiting access. Compliance with documentation standards and long-term preservation vary considerably from journal to journal.

Self-publishing occur through individual, institutional, or third-party websites. The researcher assumes the responsibility for vetting their own data for quality and documentation, as well as preserving an accessible version of the data as file formats change in the future. Tools are emerging which focus on the broad sharing of data, while allowing individual researchers or research centers to manage their own data on a remote server. The long-term implications are uncertain at this point.