Publishing your research data
Publishing research data is becoming an important component of Open Science. The Data Access Unit is a group of librarians that provide support to researchers publishing their data. The members of this group recently sat down to talk with Malin Sandström from the Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF) to discuss her recently published article “Recommendations for repositories and scientific gateways from a neuroscience perspective”
INCF is an organisation guiding researchers towards the goal of FAIR open and reproducible neuroscience. INCF promotes development of and endorses standards and guidelines that help researchers publish their data in a way that makes it more usable by other researchers. INCF’s tools and resources are relevant for researchers in all the medical sciences.
Malin’s article is targeted towards data repositories, but our discussion focused on implications for researchers in the process of publishing their data.
For example, one aspect of evaluating which repository to publish in is sustainable financing behind the repository. Long-term sustainability is a challenge for many repositories. PLOS ONE has a recommended repository list where long-term financing is a criteria for inclusion. Another resource is the Registry for Research Data Repositories where you can see if a repository is certified, which gives an indication of its long-term sustainability.
One final piece of advice Malin gave was how important it was to plan for publishing data from the beginning of a research project rather than retroactively trying to apply standards at the end of the process.
If you have questions regarding publishing your data, feel free to contact the university Research Data Office at kidr@ki.se. We at the library also offer workshops on publishing and sharing your data. You can contact us kib@ki.se or look at the library’s calendar to find out when the next workshop will be offered.
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