Repositories for Sharing Research Data
Learn more about repositories for sharing research data, including MSU access to Dryad and QDR.
MSU Library recommends that datasets be published in trustworthy data repositories, especially those that are commonly used in your discipline. Our research suggests that sharing data in a disciplinary repository promotes discovery and reuse of research data.
Jump to a section:
- Free repositories with MSU membership
- Additional general purpose repositories
- Disciplinary repositories
- Guidelines for citing published data
- Recommended descriptive elements for your dataset
- MSU Dataset Search
Free repositories with MSU membership
General purpose repository appropriate for any type of data
Free to use - MSU Library membership
You need an ORCID to log into Dryad. For more information, please see submission guidelines
Non-profit organization
Provides lightweight data curation
The MSU Library provides:
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- Copy & paste language describing how Dryad supports archiving & preservation of access and data access & sharing.
- ReadMe file template
Data repository specializing in qualitative data
Free to use - MSU Library membership
Register for an account with your montana.edu email address to deposit data.
Curation services support responsible qualitative data sharing
The MSU Library provides:
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- Copy & paste language describing how QDR supports archiving & preservation of access and data access & sharing.
- ReadMe file template
Additional general purpose repositories
General purpose repository appropriate for any type of data
Hosted by CERN
No data curation services
Free to publish data - for all users
Integrates with Github
The MSU Library provides:
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- Copy & paste language describing how Zenodo supports archiving & preservation of access and data access & sharing.
- ReadMe file template
Social science data repository
Especially recommended for sensitive data that requires restricted access
Hosted by the University of Michigan
ICPSR provides in-depth, fee-based curation and publication services
Depending on level of curation, cost is often $3000-$8000.
Contact ICPSR or an exact cost estimate.
The MSU Library provides:
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- Copy & paste language describing how ICPSR supports archiving & preservation of access and data access & sharing.
- ReadMe file template
Disciplinary repositories
Guidelines for citing published data
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When using any published dataset, include a full citation in the reference list:
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Smith K & Jones D (2016) Bison Observations in Yellowstone National Park [dataset]. Dryad. http://doi.org/10.12345/XXXXX
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For data that underlies a published article, we also recommend including a data availability statement in the article text, in addition to the full citation:
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Data available from Dryad, http://doi.org/10.12345/XXXXX
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Contact us with questions.
Recommended descriptive elements for your dataset
When publishing data in a repository, we recommend that you provide the following descriptive elements:
- Title of the dataset (unique from associated articles)
- Author (the person/people who collected the data)
- Institution (Montana State University)
- Date last modified
- Version, if applicable
- Short description of the dataset
- Readme file (Readme template)
- Citation and DOI for related publication(s), if applicable
- Licensing information
- For more information, please see Copy-Paste Language —> Policies for Reuse.
- Most research data is owned by the university. However, when sharing data in a repository, you may license your data using a Creative Commons or Open Data license. For more information, see MSU Intellectual Property Policy.
- Data ownership questions may be directed to MSU's Legal Counsel.
MSU Dataset Search
The library provides a search tool for datasets published by MSU researchers.