LibGuides: Graduate Research in Engineering &amp; Technology: Finding Data and Statistics

Government Data Sources

Data.gov
The purpose of Data.gov is to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. Data.gov provides descriptions of the Federal datasets (metadata), information about how to access the datasets, and tools that leverage government datasets.
FEDSTATS
Provides easy access via the Federal Interagency Council on Statistical Policy to the full range of statistics and information produced by federal agencies for public use.
Science.gov
Locate authoritative selected science information provided by U.S. Government agencies, including research and development results. Searches across the DOE, DOD, NASA, and EPA databases that were previously covered by the GrayLit Network, plus many more.
EPA's Environmental Dataset Gateway
Find data through EPA's environmental resources.
National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics
Contains data on research and development, the science and engineering workforce, the condition and progress of STEM education, and U.S. competitiveness in science, engineering, technology, and R&D.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Contains thousands of maps of land, space, and oceans.
Energy Information Administration
Covers analysis and projections, the environment, and markets and finance related to all aspects of the U.S. energy.

Data Sources by Subject

Biology:

GenBank
GenBank is the NIH's genetic sequence database, an annotated collection of all publicly available DNA sequences. It is designed to provide and encourage access within the scientific community to the most up to date and comprehensive DNA sequence information.
Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)
With hundreds of millions of records, GBIF is the biggest biodiversity databases on the Internet. It provides free, open access to international biodiversity data.
ONEMercury
ONE Mercury is a DataONE search tool for scientific data. It serves as a portal to searchable environmental and observational data from multiple repositories.
TreeBASE
TreeBASE is a repository of peer-reviewed phylogenetic information, specifically user-submitted phylogenetic trees and the data used to generate them.

Chemistry:

ChemSpider
A free chemical structure database from the Royal Society of Chemistry providing fast text and structure search access to over 40 million structures from hundreds of data sources.
CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics
Available online, and in print
NIST Chemistry WebBook
The NIST Chemistry WebBook provides users with easy access to chemical and physical property data for chemical species through the Internet.

Physics:

HEPData
The Durham High Energy Physics Database (HEPData) is a unique open-access repository for scattering data from experimental particle physics. It currently comprises the data points from plots and tables related to several thousand publications including those from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
Physical Reference Data (NIST)
This resource provides access to multiple sources of data/data sets at the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
WolframAlpha
This "Computational Knowledge Engine" provides quick reference information about chemical compounds, among many other things!

General Data Sources

Google

Often, Google can be a good place to start. You can find government, organization, and business sites with data available.

Search Tips:

Within your search statement, include (statistics OR data).
To search for government, organization, or educational sites, include site:.gov, site:.org, or site:.edu

Example: "global warming" (statistics OR data) site:.gov

You can also use the Advanced Search option to fill in these terms and limiters.

Google Scholar

You can try Google Scholar to identify research articles using statistics or data. Some of the articles will include statistics and will identify the researchers for you to contact if necessary.

Science | Pew Research Center
Provides data from studies of attitudes about scientific research and innovation.

Data Archives

re3data
RE3 [The REgistry of REsearch Date REpositories] is a powerful search tool for finding research data repositories worldwide.
SHARE
SHARE is a higher education initiative whose mission is to maximize research impact by making a comprehensive inventory of research widely discoverable, accessible, and reusable. You can limit your search to "Data Set.".
figshare
figshare is a repository where users can make all of their research outputs available in a citable, shareable and discoverable manner. Limit your search by type to "Dataset."
Data Repositories
This is a list hosted by Simmons College of repositories and databases for open data. Grouped by discipline.
Dryad Digital Repository
The Dryad Digital Repository is a curated resource that makes the data underlying scientific publications discoverable, freely reusable, and citable. Dryad provides a general-purpose home for a wide diversity of datatypes.
Zenodo
Zenodo is a digital repository for research across all fields of science. Limit to "Dataset."