Opening up journal articles to a wider readership is an important step to make academic research more accessible and equitable. But when researchers are seeking information beyond the article, what does that look like? How do you access the research data referenced in the open article?
Several funders and journals support broader access to research data through public access and data availability policies. And institutions and universities provide lasting homes for these data through archives and repositories.
At the forefront in opening access to data is the Dataverse Project. A widely adopted open-source application for saving and sharing data, Dataverse is in use at large research universities in the US such as Harvard and UNC, cross-institutional consortiums in Texas and Canada, and at schools and institutes around the globe, including China, Mexico, and the Netherlands.
Here at Emory, we support deposits of research data through a partnership with the UNC Dataverse. Benefits of depositing your dataset in the Emory Dataverse include:
- Persistent access to your data. Each dataset in Dataverse is assigned a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for reliable citation and linking.
- Increased visibility of your research. Describe your data with detailed metadata, add documentation files, and cite your related articles to enhance your published findings.
- Fulfilled data sharing requirements. Depositing data with Dataverse meets most funders’ and journals’ guidelines to place data in a stable location with a persistent identifier.
Learn more about the Emory Dataverse, and reach out to the Scholarly Communications Office for assistance to make your data more accessible.