Data long-term sastorage and sharing

At the end of a research project, it is important to ensure the long-term preservation or archiving of datasets in a trusted environment and to share or publish them in a research data repository where possible.

Clearly organised and documented data in a secure repository helps to ensure that datasets can be accessed and verified after the project has ended. This ensures compliance with requirements from funders, publishers, institutions or organisations for a specified retention period and the implementation of FAIR principles in practice.

This preserves data in the long term that has significant value at organisational, national or societal level and can be re-used in the future, for example for training purposes or new research.

Topics in long-term data preservation and sharing:

• Preparation of a dataset for long-term preservation
  • Preferred data formats
  • Preparation of tabular data
  • Preparation of metadata
  • Additional information to document the dataset
  • ReadMe files
  • Code book
  • Types of metadata
  • Metadata elements and standards
• Depositing research data in a repository
  • Types of repositories
  • Choosing a repository
• Copyright and licences
• Permanent identifiers
• Data availability declaration