Research Guides at CSU Pueblo Library: Open access: Find open data

Open Data Overview

Open data repositories are where researchers place (and discover) datasets from original research. There are repositories designed around specific disciplines and around specific data types. Two common types of repositories exist:

Institutional: The CSU Pueblo Digital Repository is maintained by the CSU Pueblo Library
Disciplinary: Created and maintained by professional organizations or federal funding agencies

Most federal funding agencies require grant recipients to make research data, as well as published articles, permanently accessible to the public. Increasingly, scientific publications are also requiring authors to deposit their data and provide links to the publisher. This requirement is intended to improve reproducibility studies and reduce the number of retracted articles.

Listed below are popular data repository tools that can help you identify the disciplinary repository most appropriate for your data. Some funding agencies require data be placed in a specific repository, review specific funder mandates for further guidance.

Open Data 101: OpenCon Webcast
Introduction to open data from the Right to Research Coalition.
Open Data Handbook
This guide discusses the legal, social and technical aspects of open data. It can be used by anyone but is especially designed for those seeking to open up data. It discusses why to go open, what open is, and the how to 'open' data.
Open Data Commons
Legal tools to assist authors with publishing and using open data.
SPARC Open Data Fact Sheet
Factsheet from the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Research Coalition defining open data and its uses.
The Panton Principles for Open Data in Science
A set of recommendations on how best to make published data from scientific studies available for re-use.

Open Data Repositories

Multidisciplinary:

figshare
A multidisciplinary repository where researchers can share data in a citable, sharable, and discoverable manner.
ICPSR: Deposit Data
Multidisciplinary repository designed to provide long-term data storage, including replication datasets tied to published articles.
Open Access Directory: Data Repositories
Looking for datasets for your discipline? OAD repositories and databases for open data, organized by subject.
Registry of Research Data Repositories (re3data)
A global registry of research data repositories that covers multiple academic disciplines. It promotes a culture of sharing, increased access, and better visibility of research data.
Open Knowledge International Projects
Open source data management solutions to facilitate metadata assignment, text and data mining, track open government data, civil data applications.

Sciences & Engineering:

Biosharing
Directory of life sciences databases and reporting standards.
DataONE
A distributed network of data centers, science networks and organizations that provides open, persistent, and secure access to well-described data.
Dryad
An international data repository underlying peer-reviewed articles in the basic and applied biosciences. Owned by a consortium of journals that collaboratively promote data archiving and ensure sustainability.
knb
The Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity (KNB): An international repository for ecological and environmental data.
Nature: Recommended Data Repositories
Nature's Scientific Data requires authors to release datasets, but Nature does not host data. These data repositories meet Nature's requirements for data access, preservation, and stability.
NIH: Data Sharing Repositories
NIH-supported data repositories for specific biomedical data types.
PLOS: Recommended Repositories
PLOS journals require authors to make all supporting data fully available without restriction. This list of approved repositories addresses several specific data types and disciplines.
Science: Data Deposition
Science requires authors to deposit large data sets (including microarray data, protein and DNA sequences, atomic coordinates, and climate data) in one of its approved databases prior to publication.
Chemspider
Chemical structure database with over 57 million structures from nearly 500 data sources.

ArcGIS Open Data This link opens in a new window
Freely available datasets from ArcGIS users, including government agencies and private institutions.

Medicine:

Patients Like Me
Patients voluntarily share their medical data.