Make your research data open
Research data are often the most valuable output of many research projects; they are used as primary sources that underpin scientific research and enable derivation of theoretical or applied findings.
Benefits to sharing data
There are many benefits to sharing data as a researcher, such as getting credit for your valuable data findings, making research findings more reproducible and replicable, and supporting the preservation of data long-term.
Best Practice Recommendation for Research Data
The best practice recommendation for research data is to be as open and FAIR as possible, while accounting for ethical, commercial and privacy constraints with sensitive data or proprietary data. FAIR Data Principles represent a community-developed set of guidelines and best practices to ensure that data or any digital object are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable.
There are a number of things that you can do to ensure that your research data is as open and FAIR as possible. The best way to start is to:
Depositing your data into a publicly accessible repository is the easiest way to make your data more discoverable. PURE is the data repository for research undertaken at Ulster University.
However, there may be circumstances where deposit to an external repository is a more appropriate option; the University's requirement for external deposit is that a corresponding dataset record must be created in PURE which references and links to the external repository.
Advice and a step-by-step guide on data deposit can be found on Ulster’s RDM Data Storage and Security webpages.
Persistent identifiers (PIDs) are important to making your data findable because they unambiguously identify your data and facilitate data citation. An example of a PID is a Digital Object Identifier (DOI). When depositing your data in a repository, make sure you select a repository that assigns a persistent identifier. DOIs can be created in PURE, see ‘DOIs are not just for papers’ for more information.
Data Access Statement
Another important way to make your data findable is to create a Data Access Statement.
Data access statements are used in publications to describe where supporting data can be found and under what conditions they can be accessed. Sometimes they are called Data Availability Statements.
Data access statements are required for all publications arising from publicly-funded research.
They are mandated by many funders' data policies and are a requirement of the RCUK Policy on Open Access.
Some funders have indicated that they now check for the inclusion of data access statements in publications that acknowledge their support.
Researchers should no longer use 'please contact the author' to share research data. This is because when contact details change, access to data often becomes impossible.
Further discussion on Data Access Statements including Sample Data Access Statements can also be found on Ulster’s RDM Data Deposit & Sharing webpages.
Not all data can be made openly available and FAIR does not mean that data need to be fully open. As a rule of thumb data should be ‘as open as possible, as closed as necessary’. ‘How can I adopt an open research approach if my research is sensitive and/or personal?’ discusses reasons why access must be restricted and outlines possibilities for opening access to such research data.
If your data cannot be made openly available, access conditions should be made clear to researchers wishing to re-use your data, e.g. only available for research purposes. Metadata should be accessible, even if the data are not.
Data and metadata should conform to widely used file formats and disciplinary standards for data collection should be used where possible to allow your data to be combined and re-used with other data.
Think carefully about how you format and name your files.
Funder Requirements for Research Data
Most research funders (research councils, charities and foundations) have introduced policies on research data management. The general expectation is that data from publicly funded research projects should be made openly available with as few restrictions as possible.
Ulster's Research Data Management (RDM) website provides information and links to the data policies of some of Ulster's key funders. Ulster's RDM Policy requires Ulster University researchers, as a minimum to:
archive, where possible, research data in line with funders’ guidelines by creating, in PURE, a dataset record (metadata) describing your research and either upload the dataset or point to where it is located, if it is stored elsewhere.
Funder Requirements for Research Data
Most research funders (research councils, charities and foundations) have introduced policies on research data management.
The general expectation is that data from publicly funded research projects should be made openly available with as few restrictions as possible.
Ulster's Research Data Management (RDM) website provides information and links to the data policies of some of Ulster's key funders.
Ulster's RDM Policy requires Ulster University researchers, as a minimum to:
Archive research data
Archive research data in line with funders’ guidelines by creating, in PURE, a dataset record (metadata) describing your research and either upload the dataset or point to where it is located, if it is stored elsewhere.
Advice and a step-by-step guide on data deposit in PURE can be found on Ulster’s RDM Data Storage and Security webpages.
Open Licenses and Sharing your Research Data
Licenses are essential to enable data reuse. You need a licence to clearly state what others can do with your work, whether they must cite it, and how they can share derivative work.
We have developed a section specifically focused on what you need to know about licensing and copyright for open research. This section includes guides for choosing an Open Data Licence and applying an Open Licence to your research data.
