What is the University of Sussex Research Data Repository?
This is a free service for Sussex academics to manage and share research data. It is also an online discovery tool that presents data in an easy to access interface that promotes reuse.
Technology
The repository is powered by Figshare - a powerful cloud based digital tool allowing researchers to publish, share, describe, embargo and licence the datasets produced as part of a research project. Digital objects can be stored alongside their descriptions and custom metadata schemas are fully supported. Figshare allows researchers to organise their data in a variety of ways using projects and collections. Research groups, labs, schools and departments can even have their own dedicated web space to showcase all the research data from their section.
Over 100 file formats are supported by the online viewer, any formats that aren't supported can be downloaded to a local machine.
The personal storage space in the repository allows researchers to store and describe or organise their data prior to publication. Users have an initial 5GB of storage that can be increased on request according to requirements for free.
Figshare has an open API that can be used to create web sites and applications using data stored in the repository. Go to the Figshare API documentation to get started.
You can also link to your Github account and import repositories for sharing.
Benefits
There are many benefits of using the repository such as:
- Helps you to satisfy funder requirements to increase the likelihood of a successful bid.
- Get a DOI for your data that can be cited seperately from your research output and track the use using download figures.
- Makes it easier to compile your Data Management Plan - instead of searching around for respositories that might be suitable, you know that Sussex has a system that will suit your needs.
- Data from all your research can be stored in one place - helping you to build a data profile.
- Researchers don't have to answer multiple requests to view their data. Just point people to your data profile.
Preservation
Figshare is not just a great way to provide access to your research data, it also provides a way to preserve your research data for the future.
- Ensure your research data is publically available beyond the lifetime of your funded project.
- You don't need to build and maintain your own website to deliver your data after the end of your funded project. After deposit, the Library manages and maintains your data for you.
- Ensure that your research data is preserved securely and safely. See how Figshare ensures your data is stored securely.
- The University of Sussex Research Data Repository is a permanent register and repository and the university is committed to ensuring that its research data is preserved indefinately through regular backups and multiple storage locations.
- The Figshare online viewer converts proprietary formats into open formats where possible to ensure that your data is accessible when the original format is no longer supported by contemporary software.
Content types
The content you can submit to Figshare includes but is not limited to:
- Completed questionnaires
- Recorded audio interviews and transcripts
- Multimedia and audio-visual materials
- Images
- Microscope images
- Tables of statistics
- Documents and Spreadsheets
- Code
- Software
- Databases
Discovery and Re-use
Figshare offers a modern easy to use interface to enable other researchers to find and re-use your data.
- Your data is discoverable through google and other search engines - as long as you describe your data well other researchers will find your data.
- All data is also published on Figshare.com - a vast repository of data from research carried out around the world.
- Create a link from your research output to your data so researchers can find it immediately upon reading your paper.
- Link your data sets to research outputs submitted to SRO - the University's institutional repository.
- Link your account to your ORCiD ID.