WHY SHARE DATA?
Across the world, funders of research are increasingly following guidance from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, that publicly funded research data should be openly available to the scientific community to the maximum extent possible. Many UK research councils have data sharing policies in place, and other research funders and publishers are increasingly encouraging the sharing of both data and outputs. When managed properly throughout the research cycle and preserved adequately, archived research data can underpin future investigations, encourage scientific inquiry and provide resources for education and training.
Researchers are therefore advised to make provisions for proper description, curation and sharing of their data. This suite of web pages on Managing and Sharing Data aims to help with that task.
Data archiving and sharing:
- meets the contractual obligations of research funders who operate data sharing policies
- reduces the cost of duplicating data collection efforts
- promotes research and may lead to new collaborations with data users
- demonstrates the value of researchers' work by allowing continued re-use of the data, which may influence funding agencies to provide further funding
Depositing and sharing data with a specialist data centre ensures:
- safe-keeping of research data in a secure environment
- long-term preservation
- back-up of data
- refreshment of media over time
- resource discovery of data through inclusion in online catalogues
- rights management of data (licensing issues)
- administration for data dissemination
- management and monitoring of secondary usage of the collection
- management of user queries
- promotion of data to user groups
UKDA has been curating data for over 40 years over which time it has gained a wealth of expertise in all aspects of data curation, dissemination and user support.
Sharing data should not be onerous, but form part of good research practice.
