Your funding agency may require that your data management plan address long-term storage and accessibility of your research data. A simple and effective way to share your research data is to publish them in a data repository or data archive. Data repositories allow users to upload and make accessible and discoverable their research data, all in an effort to fulfill grant requirements and/or support the free sharing of scholarly knowledge. Materials that are deposited into a repository should be:
- Persistent (not likely to be modified),
- Searchable and browsable,
- Retrieved or downloaded easily, and
- Citable.
A wide variety of institution-based and discipline-specific repositories exist for researchers to choose from. The repository itself should be:
- Appropriate for the type of data you generate,
- Appropriate for the audience of the repository (so they will make use of your data!), and
- In compliance with any funder or publisher mandates.
If both a discipline-specific repository and an institution-based one exist for your data, then consider depositing in both locations to maximize discovery and safety of the data.
Content adapted from Data Management Planning by NYU Libraries, licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
