Research Data Management

Many researchers already share data with colleagues or established networks of peers within and outside their discipline.  To make data more discoverable and to preserve it for long term access, consider depositing data in a data repository or archive.

By publishing/sharing datasets or descriptions of datasets, researchers will benefit:

• Expand the scale and impact of your research: Research data can be cited by other researchers which can amplify your research impact.

• Increase collaboration and career rewards: Your research datasets become more discoverable, making other researchers aware of your research.

• Research integrity: The validity of research results can be substantiated.

• Future applications: Your data can live on as new technologies can interrogate it.

• Esteem factor: In some disciplines sharing is viewed as an important contribution to the community of knowledge.

The study cited below provides one example of how publically available data has increased citation impact.

"The 48% of trials with publicly available microarray data received 85% of the aggregate citations. Publicly available data was significantly (p = 0.006) associated with a 69% increase in citations, independently of journal impact factor, date of publication, and author country of origin using linear regression."

Source : Piwowar HA, Day RS, Fridsma DB (2007) Sharing Detailed Research Data Is Associated with Increased Citation Rate. PLoS ONE 2(3): e308. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000308.

Research Data Australia provides a comprehensive window into the Australian Research Data Commons.

Research Data Australia is an Internet-based discovery service designed to provide rich connections between data, projects, researchers and institutions, and promote visibility of Australian research data collections in search engines.

USC contributes data metadata to Research Data Australia via the USC Research Bank. 

USC has data collections listed on Research Data Australia, and is looking for more.  If you wish to make your data more discoverable, contact Beth Crawter, Information and Research Services Coordinator, Library (ecrawter@usc.edu.au).

USC's collections on Research Data Australia can be viewed here.

Options for sharing your data

"Sharing" does not necessarily mean unlimited open access. Other options are available to researchers wishing to promote their data.

• Open Access - Data is available online via a web link to a repository, or in an open access physical space.
• Mediated Access - Access to the data is granted upon request to the researcher, chief investigator or other nominated gatekeeper.
• Restricted Access - The existence of the data is published or circulated, but protocols and policies restrict access to a particular defined group.

When data cannot be shared...

There may also be factors that prevent the data being shared, including:

• Commercial in confidence
• You have not finished publishing using that data
• IP and commercial potential
• Privacy, but
• ...sensitive and confidential data can often be shared ethically if informed consent for data sharing has been given - subjects' identities are anonymised (if needed) or consideration is given to access restrictions.

A short introduction to the connection between ANDS (Australian National Data Service) and ORCID, including a demonstration on how to import your datasets from Research Data Australia into your ORCID profile.

Further information on ORCID identifiers can be found in the USC Researcher Identifiers Guide.