Tag Archives: digital repositories

Open Access Week 2026 – Open Data Repositories: Choosing the Right Home for Your Research Data

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By Tiffany J. Grant, PhD

Traditionally, research findings were published in journal articles, but much of the data gathered in the process was seldom made available. Now funders, publishers, and institutions demand that both publications and supporting data be openly available. Open research does not stop at publications; it also includes all research outputs, such as data, code, and even open peer review. Open access can help increase the impact of research and potentially speed up new discoveries.

Federal policies require researchers to deposit federally funded research in open data repositories. While open-access publishing makes research findings freely available to readers, open data repositories enhance transparency by providing access to the datasets underlying those findings.  Open access publishing and open data repositories advance the principles of open science by promoting greater openness, reusability, and reproducibility in research. While open access publishing gives readers access to the story, open data repositories give readers access to the evidence behind the story, allowing others to examine and reuse it.

Open data repositories are places where researchers can share data to make it easier to find. Many open data repositories provide DOIs (digital object identifiers), or digital tags, to help researchers cite their data, support long-term storage, and meet funder and publisher requirements to share data. Sharing research data in a trustworthy open data repository can make your data more accessible, reusable, and compliant with FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) principles.

Considerations for Selecting a Data Repository

Open Access Week 2026 – Open Data Repositories: Choosing the Right Home for Your Research Data

Simplified flowchart for choosing a research data repository. Created with BearChatGPT based on author specifications, October 14, 2026.

Selected Repository Options

Generalist Repositories

General repositories accept research data, code, and scholarly outputs regardless of subject matter, data format, or academic discipline. These are good options when no disciplinary repository exists.

  • Figshare: Supports datasets, code, figures, posters, presentations, and other research outputs. Provides DOIs, versioning, and sharing controls, making it popular among universities and research institutions. UCFigshare is the data repository available for federally funded University of Cincinnati researchers to promote the sharing of scientific data in compliance with. UCFigshare provides a data sharing platform consistent with the FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability) data principles and is provided via a partnership between the Office of Research, UC Libraries, and DTS.
  • Zenodo: A free multidisciplinary repository that allows researchers to share datasets, software, publications, and other research products while receiving a DOI.
  • Dryad: A curated repository commonly used for datasets associated with scholarly publications, particularly in the life and environmental sciences.

Domain Specific Repositories

Domain-specific repositories are specialized repositories that collect, preserve, and share data, code, or research outputs tailored to a particular academic field, scientific discipline, or data type.

Social Sciences and Education

Health and Biomedical Sciences Repositories

Environmental and Earth Sciences Repositories

Engineering, Physical Sciences, and Computing

Updates for Data Sharing at UC

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The UC Office of Research supported repository  UCFigshare is now available for data deposits resulting from any Federal Funder.  If you are funded by any of the 15 federal agencies such as NIH or NSF which have a data sharing requirement as part of the grant, you can contact the UCFigshare team and request access to deposit.  The UCFigshare website provides instructions on how to request storage, upload datasets, and use the system. It also provides important budget considerations.

Updates for Data Sharing at UC

Research data sharing has been encouraged as a part of grant funding since the publication of the 2013 Holdren memorandum entitled “Expanding Public Access to the Results of Federally Funded Research”.  The 2022 Nelson OSTP memorandum accelerated the timeline and included required sharing the article and the data supporting without embargo as soon as the grant period ends.  Under the recent May 2025 executive order entitled Restoring Gold Standard Science, this is still the case that federally funded research data needs to be shared per the agency policy (1). It is now required to indicate the repository where you will share the data as part of the data management and sharing plan (DMSP). 

Agencies with Updated Policies in Effect

AHRQ | CDC | Ed | DOE | EPA | FDA | IMLS | NASA SMD | NEH | NIH | Smithsonian

Agencies with Updated Policies Published but not yet in Effect

ACF | ACL | Census | CMS | CPSC

Even if your research is not funded by a federal agency, sharing research data can benefit a researcher greatly.  Research data sharing accelerates research discovery, facilitates research reproducibility, helps identify issues with the data, and increases research impact.  Sharing the data and other research outputs such as registrations, protocols, code, and preprints helps the next generation of researchers better understand and reuse the outputs. Data sharing comes with the cost of extra time invested to create good documentation and uploading the data and other project associated research outputs to the designated repository.  Planning from the start of any project can help ease this additional labor.  These planning steps are also part of writing the DMSP accompanying a grant application.  Some recommended steps (2) are:

  • Identify a data repository as early as possible for the informed consent forms and to specify in the DMSP
  • Establish a file naming convention and organization
  • Include file-level Information
  • Keep track of sensitive information
  • Keep memos about analytic decisions
  • Create a “data narrative” and a readme file
  • Prepare your data for sharing
  • Make a human readable form and a raw / machine readable form
  • Promote your data  

UC researchers have several platforms for data sharing including the Office of Research managed UCFigshare, and UC Libraries managed repositories such as the Qualitative Data Repository (QDR), Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), the Open Science Framework (OSF), and Scholar@UC. UC Libraries Research and Data Services unit can advise researchers on data management and sharing plans, metadata, and workflows. Email askdata@uc.edu if you have questions, need assistance, or want to learn more about university resources. 

References

(1) Badger, K., Biszaha, A. Sadvari, S., and Walsh, M., 2025 Federal Sponsor Updates to Article and Data Sharing [Webinar]. Ohio State University Library. 12-11-2025. Personal communication.

(2) Karcher, Sebastian; Kirilova, Dessi; and Page, Christiane, “Sharing and Managing Qualitative Data” (2019). Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs. 2. https://surface.syr.edu/miga/2

Updates for Data Sharing at UC