Publishing and sharing your data benefits both you and other researchers. It can:
- increase the impact and visibility of your research
- help lead to new and unanticipated discoveries
- help lead to new collaborations between data users and data creators
- reduce the cost of duplicating data collection
- provide resources for education and training.
Once your data is published or shared, it becomes discoverable and can be reused. Before you publish, consider access and ownership issues.
Repositories and portals enable data discovery by publishing data descriptions (‘metadata’) about the data they hold. An example of a service that provides descriptions of and links to data from many research fields is Research Data Australia.
Repositories and archives
Depositing your data in a repository or archive can help you:
- manage your data
- cite your data by supplying a persistent identifier
- facilitate discovery of your data
- preserve your data for the long run.
Find a repository
Use the following resources to find a repository.
How to assess a repository’s suitability
A tool for assessing a repository’s suitability is provided below.
DCC checklist on where to keep research data.
Journals
You can submit your data to a journal along with your research paper.
Familiarise yourself with the data sharing and accessibility requirements of a journal before you submit your research to be published. Follow good research data management practices throughout your project to ensure your data can be accessed and understood when published.
Data journals
You can submit your research data to a data journal. Data journals are publications whose primary purpose is to expose datasets. Publishing in a data journal may be of interest to researchers and data producers for whom data is a primary research output.
Peer-to-peer transfer and sharing
For a list of tools for collaborative writing and sharing, see researcher development.
Find out more about collaboration and sharing tools
Massey University supports the ZendTo service as a means of transferring large files (up to 20GB) in and out of Massey via email. ZendTo is a transfer service only – files are automatically deleted two weeks after upload.
Find out more about how to use ZendTo
Data visualisation
Data visualisation tools allow users to communicate their research results, and to visually represent data in new ways that allow for enhanced understanding and discovery.
These data visualisation tools are available for use on your personal computer. They can be installed on Massey University computers if supported by your college, school or institute.
Simple data visualisation:
Microsoft Excel
Free for Massey University staff to download and install as part of the Office365 package. Access it from https://portal.massey.ac.nz/
Advanced data visualisation:
These tools offer free versions which are suitable for personal use. The free versions limit the sharing of dynamic content with other researchers.
Be careful how you share sensitive or confidential data.
Learn more about data ownership and access
Digital object identifiers and ORCID IDs
Make sure your published data can always be located and attributed to you through digital object identifiers (DOIs) and ORCID IDs.
ORCID
ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier (ORCID ID) that’s unique to you. If you use an ORCID ID, all the data that you’ve published can be easily identified as yours.
Find out more about ORCID IDs and how to apply for one
Digital object identifiers (DOIs)
You can apply a DOI so that your data will always have a persistent, citable link to the original source, and the impact of your data can be measured effectively.
Apply a DOI to your data when it:
- is finalised
- will be made available via open or mediated access
- will be cited in a publication or as an output in its own right.
Massey does not currently subscribe to a DOI minting service at the university level – but your individual school may have an independent subscription you can use.
Data reuse and citation
Secondary data is research data that other researchers have gathered. It’s often stored in repositories where you can access and reuse it if you have permission to do so.
It’s important to give credit to the data producer by citing the data correctly whenever you use it in your own research.
Citing datasets:
- enables data reuse to be tracked
- informs measurements of the data’s continued value or impact.
The Digital Curation Centre also offers a guide to:
- citing data in common styles, for example APA and Chicago
- data citation formats suggested by repositories.
How to cite datasets and link to publications from the Digital Curation Centre
Contact a subject or Māori services librarian
We’re here to help you with your research or teaching. Contact a subject or Māori services librarian by email or book an appointment.