Publishing and Sharing Your Data
The University of Adelaide encourages researchers to make research data available for re-use whenever possible.
The Research Data and Primary Materials Policy sets out the University's requirements.
Figshare is the University of Adelaide's official data and digital object repository with unlimited local storage. It is available to all current staff and HDR students to upload research data and digital objects. When you publish your data or metadata on Figshare, it is assigned a DOI and becomes more discoverable including on Research Data Australia, Google Datasets, and other platforms.
If it's common in your research area to share data in a specific repository, you can still follow the University's policy by describing your data on Figshare and providing a link to where the dataset is stored.
Before sharing your data, make sure you're allowed to do so. There could be confidentiality or contractual agreements you need to consider.
The FAIR Data Principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Re-usable) provide excellent guidance in the preparation of research data for publication.
How FAIR are your data? Use this checklist to gauge your data's adherence to the FAIR principles and pinpoint areas for improvement. You can also use the FAIR data self-assessment tool from the Australian Research Data Commons. If you need discipline-specific advice, contact the Library.
Findable
Make sure your data can be found easily by machines and humans. By assigning a persistent identifier like a DOI or a Handle to a dataset, it will be easier for others to find and cite. Publish your data in repositories well known in your discipline to make it more findable.
Accessible
If possible, make the data openly accessible. If offering the dataset open access is not an option for any reason, provide metadata and clarity about the access options. The access to your data should be as open as possible and as restricted as necessary.
Interoperable
Ensure your data and metadata follow the standards accepted in your discipline. This includes formats, file types and the vocabulary you use.
Re-usable
Ensure that data is richly described and documented, aiding decision-making about its fitness for re-use. Assign a clear licence, preferably a machine-readable Creative Commons Licence, and detailed provenance information on how it was collected and generated.
