Share Your Data

Help your future self. Stay informed about requirements and options for sharing data. You may be required by a funding agency or a journal publisher to share data. Your discipline may have a culture of sharing data and pre-print articles. You may wish to speed up the progress of research by contributing to open science.

Sharing data

Regardless of your reasons, sharing data requires you to be aware of mandates that apply to your project, repositories that accept data and are appropriate for your discipline, and any costs and limitations on sensitive data associated with a particular repository. You may also need to balance requirements or recommendations for data sharing with ethical considerations.


Subject-specific repositories

Many disciplines offer public repositories for researchers to deposit their data. Good data management practice recommends that researchers use discipline-specific, community-recognized repositories for long-term storage. Prior to selection, evaluate a repository for cost, sustainability, access, preservation, and other factors set out in your data management plan. Examples of recognized discipline-specific repositories include:

  • DataONE
    Funded by the National Science Foundation, Data Observation Network for Earth (DataONE) offers a search interface for discovering many kinds of scientific data. Deposits of scientific research data are accepted through DataONE's member nodes.
  • ICPSR
    Based at the University of Michigan, ICPSR (Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research) provides data curation and repository services for social science data and a search interface for discovering and using these data.
  • QDR
    Based at Syracuse University, QDR (Qualitative Data Repository) provides data curation and repository services for qualitative and multi-method data from the social sciences, health sciences, applied sciences, and humanities. The repository also offers a search interface for discovering and using qualitative data, as well as guidance and resources for managing, reusing, and teaching with qualitative and multi-method data.

General data repositories

If there is not an appropriate disciplinary repository for your data, you may want to consider using a general data repository. Below are some examples of data repositories that accept data from all disciplines. Be sure to read the repository FAQ and “how to deposit data” instructions to ensure that it is an appropriate match for your research data.

GIS and Data Contacts

GIS Resources
April Friedl, Senior GIS Analyst
Watson Library
april.friedl@ku.edu
785-864-6432

Research Data
Jamene Brooks-Kieffer, Data Services Librarian
Watson Library
jamenebk@ku.edu
785-864-5238

Digital Humanities
Watson Library
Institute for Digital Research in the Humanities
idrh@ku.edu

general purpose data repositories
Repository NameFormatSize LimitPersistent Digital Object Identifier (DOI)Curation ServiceAccept Restricted Data?EmbargoCost
KU Scholar
Works
Flexible2 GB per fileYesNo; guidance availableNoEmbargo optionsFree for KU faculty, staff, and students
DataverseAny2.5 GB per file; 1 TB totalYesYesNoEmbargo optionsFree
DryadFlexible300 GB per data publicationYesBasicNoYes, with limitsData publishing charges
figshareAny5 GB per file; 20 GB privateYesNoYesYesFree
Open Science FrameworkAny5 GB private; 50 GB publicYesNoNoEmbargo optionsFree
openICPSRAny2 GB per depositYesNoYesYesFree and Paid options
ZenodoAny50 GB per datasetYesNoYes; depositor responsible for anonymizationEmbargo optionsFree