Publishing research data

Research data includes all types of scientific information, which form the basis of scientific research – together with their descriptive metadata. Examples of research data are measurement results, secondary analyses, visualisations, models, study data and questionnaires. Research data constitutes the essential basis for new knowledge. Huge volumes of data are generated in experiments every day. Due to the rapid development of digital data acquisition, the processing and long-term provision of data collections in digital form are becoming increasingly important. However, a project's research data is often scattered across research institutes, and is usually collected and managed by individual scientists. Due to the extra work involved and the lack of acknowledgement, this data is often poorly documented, making it difficult to access and store long term.

What are the advantages of publishing such data?

Publishing research data offers researchers and the scientific community numerous advantages:

• Research data can easily be reused and verified
• Positive impact on scientific reputation: publications featuring a link to the data used in the publication are cited more frequently (Piwowar & Vision, 2013; Henneken & Accomazzi, 2011)
• Compliance with the "rules of good scientific practice" of the German Research Foundation (DFG)
• The duplication of research data is avoided
• Motivation to conduct new research

Where and how can I publish research data?

re3data

There are various ways to publish your research data, depending on the type of data and the specialist discipline. An overview of the possibilities can be found in "re3data" (Registry of Research Data Repositories)".

RADAR

Research Data Repository RADAR offers research institutions a sustainable infrastructure that can be used to digitally preserve research data and to publish such data as required.

Together with the RADAR operator, FIZ Karlsruhe – Leibniz Institute for Information Infrastructure, TIB provides advice and training on RADAR, and uses the system to publish its own research data publications. More about the RADAR data repository

Publishing research data at Leibniz Universität Hannover

Academics and employees of Leibniz Universität Hannover may use the local data repository (beta) of Leibniz Universität IT Services (LUIS) to publish their data. The data repository is linked to other IT services provided by LUIS and is embedded in the university’s infrastructure (Current Research Information System, Leibniz Universität Hannover Institutional Repository).

Find out more about the services offered by Leibniz Universität Hannover relating to the topic of research data.