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Research Data Management

Selecting a Repository

To share your research materials, one of the best options is to publish them in a repository, a storage facility (often also a preservation and curation facility) where users can upload and download their data, make it accessible and discoverable, all in an effort to fulfill grant requirements and/or support the free sharing of scholarly knowledge. Materials that are deposited into a repository should be:

  • Persistent (not likely to be modified)
  • Searchable 
  • Retrieved or downloaded easily
  • Citeable 

A wide variety of institution-based and discipline-specific repositories exist for researchers to choose from. The repository itself should be: 

  • Appropriate for the type of data you generate
  • Appropriate for the audience of the repository (so they will make use of your data!)
  • Open access

Consider depositing in both a subject-specific repository, if there is one available, and a generalist repository to maximize discovery and safety of the data.

Repository Options

Repository Directories

  • re3data
    • The Registry of Resarch Data Repositories is a service provided by DataCite (a global non-profit that provides DOIs - Digial Object Identifiers) and has over 1,500 data repositories listed.
  • Sherpa Juliet 

    • Sherpa Juliet enables researchers and librarians to see funders' conditions for open access publication and is a searchable database and single focal point of up-to-date information concerning research funders' policies and their requirements on open access, publication and data archiving.

  • Fairsharing 
    • Can be used to find both domain and generalist repositories as well as those recommended by specific journals, funders, and organizations.
  • OpenDOAR
    • OpenDOAR (Directory of Open Access Repositories) is a curated and authoratative list of academic open access repositories (over 2,600 listings). Staff of OpenDOAR visit each repository and also review each repository for quality. Included in OpenDOAR are datasets, articles, books, and software.
  • Open Access Directory of Data Repositories 
    • Lists of open access data repositories for a wide range of subject areas.

Generalist Repositories

  • Dryad
    • Dryad is an independent non-profit that works directly with researchers, publishers and institutions to create a curated resource that makes research data discoverable, freely reusable and citable.
  • figshare
    • A free, open access, data repository where users can make all outputs of their research available in a discoverable, reusable, and citable manner.
  • Harvard Dataverse
    • Harvard Dataverse Repository is a free data repository open to all researchers from any discipline, both inside and outside of the Harvard community, where you can share, archive, cite, access, and explore research data.
  • Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
    • Considered the standard in data curation. Only researchers from member institutions may deposit at ICPSR. Unlike most other archives, ICPSR will curate the data where the "data are organized, described, cleaned, enhanced, and preserved for public use."
  • Open Science Framework (OSF)
    • OSF is a free and open-source project management tool that supports researchers throughout their entire project lifecycle in open science best practices.
  • Zenodo
    • Zenodo is a general-purpose open repository developed under the European OpenAIRE program and operated by CERN. It allows researchers to deposit research papers, data sets, research software, reports, and any other research related digital artifacts.
  • Mendeley Data
    • Mendeley Data is a free repository specialized for research data. Search more than 20+ million datasets indexed from 1000s of data repositories and collect and share datasets with the research community following the FAIR data principles.

Domain-Specific Repositories 

  • NIH-supported domain-specific data repositories
    • Repositories in this list include both those funded by NIH and those with no NIH funding. Filters are available to limit repositories by such properties as ICO and access (controlled, open, registered).
  • NSF Public Access Repository (NSF-PAR)
    •  In support of NSF's plan for providing public access to its funded research, the NSF Public Access Repository (NSF-PAR) is the designated repository where NSF-funded investigators deposit peer-reviewed, published journal articles and juried conference papers. NSF-PAR also provides search mechanisms to enable you to find and use these articles and papers.