LibGuides: Data Management @ ODU: Data Repositories to Store, Share, and Search for Data

Data Repositories for Storing & Sharing Your Data

There are many repositories in existence; some are discipline specific and some are interdisciplinary. This section provides a non-exhaustive listing of repositories that might be useful to you, as well as repository registries to search for additional repositories. Always be sure to check the data sharing requirements of your publisher or funder because they may have specific repository requirements.

Many repositories will have requirements for submission, such as specific metadata to include. In addition, some repositories will conduct data curation to varying degrees (ICPSR, QDR, Dryad).

Repository Registries and Lists

These links index or inventory various repositories worldwide.

re3data
RE3 [The REgistry of REsearch Data REpositories] is a powerful search tool for finding research data repositories worldwide.
Data Repositories
This is a list hosted by Simmons College of repositories and databases for open data. Grouped by discipline.
Recommended Data Repositories (from Nature)
"Nature" asks authors "to submit datasets to an appropriate public data repository. Data should be submitted to discipline-specific, community-recognized repositories where possible, or to generalist repositories if no suitable community resource is available."

Sciences/Medicine Data Repositories

DataONE
Data Observation Network for Earth (DataONE) is ... a distributed framework and sustainable cyberinfrastructure that meets the needs of science and society for open, persistent, robust, and secure access to well-described and easily discovered Earth observational data. Supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (Phase 1 Grant #ACI-0830944, Phase 2 Grant #ACI-1430508) as one of the initial DataNets, DataONE will ensure the preservation, access, use and reuse of multi-scale, multi-discipline, and multi-national science data.
PANGAEA
PANGAEA archives, publishes and distributes data for Earth and environmental sciences and focuses on georeferenced observational and experimental data.
NIH Data Sharing Repositories
Listing of NIH-supported data repositories that make data accessible for reuse.
Vivli
Although part of the NIH Generalist Repository Ecosystem Initiative (GREI), Vivli focuses on clinical research data.

Social Sciences Data Repositories

ICPSR -- Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research
Historic and current (Restricted to ODU)
Provides access to a vast archive of social science data. ICPSR's data holdings are for use with statistical software, such as SAS, SPSS, and Stata. A unit within the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, ICPSR has over 780 member colleges and universities around the world. First time users must access this link to create an account.

Qualitative Data Repository
"QDR curates, stores, preserves, publishes, and enables the download of digital data generated through qualitative and multi-method research in the social sciences."

Generalist Repositories

While funders, such as NIH, do recommend domain-specific repositories be used where possible, there is the recognition that repositories do not exist for all disciplines or types of data. Generalist repositories accept data regardless of data type, format, content, or disciplinary focus (NIH: Generalist Repositories).

Learn about NIH's Generalist Repository Ecosystem Initiative (GREI) on the "New NIH Data Management & Sharing Policy" page and more about each repository using the below referenced chart and flowchart.

Generalist Repository Comparison Chart
The chart presents a comparison of the generalist repositories within the GREI initiative. Information includes size limits, storage space per user, version support, formats, cost.
Generalist Repository Selection Flowchart

The flowchart is "designed to guide users through a series of considerations for selecting the right repository for sharing data".

Dataverse (Harvard)
Dataverse is an open source web application to share, preserve, cite, explore, and analyze research data. It facilitates making data available to others, and allows you to replicate others' work more easily. Researchers, journals, data authors, publishers, data distributors, and affiliated institutions all receive academic credit and web visibility.
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 data types.
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."
Open Science Framework
OSF is a free, open platform to support your research and enable collaboration. As a collaboration tool, OSF helps research teams work on projects privately or make the entire project publicly accessible for broad dissemination. As a workflow system, OSF enables connections to the many products researchers already use, streamlining their process and increasing efficiency.
Zenodo
Zenodo, funded by CERN, OpenAIRE, and the European Commission, is a digital repository that welcomes research from all over the world, from all disciplines and does not impose requirements on size, format, or licensing. Limit to "resource_type.type:dataset" in the search bar.

Repositories for Software & Code

According to MIT Citing & publishing software: Publishing research software, "if your code is stored in GitHub, you can archive your repository and get a permanent citable DOI by archiving in either Zenodo or Figshare. These are data repositories that allow management of all kinds of data, and are both free for researchers to use. Zenodo and Figshare can also be used to store research data."

Additional Resources:

Duke University Libraries Center for Data and Visualization Sciences Blog: Code Repository vs. Archival Repository. You need both. (Little, 2022)
NYU Libraries: Research Software: Designing for Publication and Reproducibility - Where To Publish Your Code

Search for Data

In addition to searching for data in the above repositories, there are many other places to check for data you can use.

Data.gov
The home of the U.S. Government’s open data. Here you will find data, tools, and resources to conduct research, develop web and mobile applications, design data visualizations, and more.
Google Dataset Search
Dataset Search is a search engine for datasets. Using a simple keyword search, users can discover datasets hosted in thousands of repositories across the Web.
DataCite Commons
Search for works, people, organizations and repositories.

Please refer to the Find Data section of the Data and Statistics library guide for additional information.