Share data
Research data are increasingly considered as a valuable research output, equivalent to journal articles and monographs. For information on publishing research outputs please see the University of Salford Institutional Repository (USIR).
Publishing research data enables you to build up your academic reputation (making data openly available facilitates discovery and reuse), meet funder requirements, enable data validation and facilitate scientific progress, increase opportunities for collaboration, avoid duplication and increase the return on public investments in scientific research.
There are also valid reasons for restricting access to research data: for example, because the data is patentable, to allow an embargo period so researchers have exclusive use of the data and the opportunity to exploit the results, to protect confidentiality and other ethical and legal considerations.
Research data about people, including sensitive data, can be shared ethically and legally if strategies such as informed consent and anonymisation are used.
The University of Salford data repository is Figshare. Figshare is an open access repository for research data and non-traditional research outputs, such as figures, datasets, images, and videos. All file types are supported. Using Figshare enables research data to be discoverable, reusable and citable, through the creation of a DOI with each deposit. Long term storage is covered by Arkivum, an archiving tool which works behind the scenes to ensure long term accessibility and integrity of research data. Support and guidance including how-to guides and faqs are provided on Figshare's knowledge portal.
You can also connect your ORCID ID to your Figshare profile.
Licensing Data
Licensing is essential for clarifying what users may or may not do to the research data.
You must choose a license or legal agreement when depositing data in a repository. Licenses are granted by the Intellectual Property holder of the data, which should be determined when planning the research project. Some of the most common licenses for research data are by the Creative Commons.
Information about different licenses for research data are available from the DCC and Jisc.
DCC How to license research data.
Jisc Licensing open data – a practical guide.
EUDAT have created a License Selector Tool to help you choose an appropriate license.
Data Access Statements
Data access statements (DAS) are used in research publications to explain where supporting data can be found and under what conditions they can be accessed. A DAS is required within a publication by many funders and scientific journals, and is mandated in the UKRI Common Principles on Data Policy and the UKRI's open access policy. UKRI requires that you must include a DAS in your article, even where there is not data associated with the article or the data are inaccessible.
Data access statements need to include a persistent URL directly linking to the dataset or to supporting documentation that describes the data in detail, how it may be accessed and any constraints that may apply. If compelling legal or ethical reasons exist to protect access to the data, these should be noted in the statement. A simple 'contact the author' instruction is insufficient.
The format and placement of the data access statement will be influenced by the publisher's house-style. Some journals provide a separate section in articles for the data access statement. If this is not available include the data access statement with the acknowledgement of funder support. Alternatively, a formal data citation could be included either within the main references or in a data citation section.
The data access statement should be included in submitted papers, even if a persistent URL or DOI have not been issued. The statement should be updated to include any persistent identifiers as they become available, usually when the paper is accepted for publication.
Examples of data access statements
All data supporting this study are openly available from the University of Salford Data Repository https://dx.doi.org/10.17866/rd.salford.2084281.v1.
All data supporting this study are provided as supplementary information accompanying this paper.
All data are provided in full in the results section of this paper.
Due to ethical concerns, supporting data cannot be made openly available. Further information about the data and conditions for access are available at the University of Salford Data Repository https://dx.doi.org/10.17866/rd.salford.2084281.v1.
Due to the (commercially, politically, ethically) sensitive nature of the research, no participants consented to their data being retained or shared. Additional details relating to other aspects of the data are available from the University of Salford Data Repository at https://dx.doi.org/10.17866/rd.salford.2084281.v1.
No new data were created during this study.
Citing data
Published research data may be referred to or re-used as the basis for further research and must be correctly cited. Data citation should be viewed as part of good research practice. Further information on how to cite data is available from the DCC.
A dataset citation includes common components seen in any other citation:
- author
- title
- year of publication
- publisher (for data this is often the archive where it is housed)
- edition or version
- access information (a URL or other persistent identifier such as a DOI)