All research involves data and the amount of data produced annually is tremendous. With the growth of open access and research transparency, data that was formerly unavailable is now much more open and located around the globe. Whether being shared because of grant funding requirements (eg. NIH) or open access mandates in some organizations and countries, many datasets are stored and made digitally accessible to anyone needing the data. Finding datasets is possible through a numbers of search engines. Such as:
Datacite - provides persistent identifiers (DOIs) for research data and other research output
Google Dataset Search - search engine for datasets
ICPSR - Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan - Datasets in the social sciences
OAD Data Repositories - Repositories and databases for open data
OSF Share - a free, open dataset of research (meta)data.
In addition to using a data search engine, you may want to tap data repositories. Academic and research institutions require the storage of data, although they will vary when it comes to accessibility. Some places to check out are...
Harvard Dataverse - allows for depositing and sharing data
Nature Data Repository Guidance - Links to a variety of dataset repository
re3data.org - a registry of research data repositories
Science Data Bank - makes "data citable, discoverable and persistently accessible"
Organize Your Research Data |
Great organization is your best asset for data management.
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Use a System |
The most important step to organize your research data is having a system and using it consistently. You may choose to organize your data by the following, or use them in combination:
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Document, Document, Document |
Document throughout your research process.
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"Data Management - Organize & Document" by FGCU is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Storage & Backup |
Storage ≠ Backup
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"Data Management - Storage & Backup" by FGCU is licensed under CC BY 4.0