What does Open Data mean for me as a researcher?
The Open Data trend
The current trend is increasingly towards Open Data. This circumstance is very welcome and logical in terms of good scientific practice. After all, the advantages are obvious: if freely accessible data are available to science and society, the number and quality of new scientific findings increases. The already scarce resources financed from tax revenues are thus put to optimal use.
It is therefore hardly surprising that many third-party funders now want research data to be published in an open and reusable form. This is particularly the case with EU Horizon 2020 projects and will in all probability also be increasingly demanded by other funding agencies.
What does Open Data mean for me as a researcher?
Research data management does not necessarily involve making data publicly available. Good research data management enables data to be stored and archived in such a way that it can later be understood and used by other researchers. This can be the project leader (professor), colleagues who are granted access to the data by agreement - or the public.
Sometimes reasons for exclusion (such as legal reasons, e.g. copyright, data protection, secrecy) prevent publication. In these cases, it is usually sufficient to explain the reasons for exclusion to the sponsor - for example in the data management plan.
- Our service: Generation of data management text for grant applications and advice on data management plans.
How do I archive and/or publish my data?
Data is published in suitable data archives or so-called repositories. At the TUD, data can be published and archived (=without publication) on OpARA (Open Access Repository and Archive). Depending on the research topic and discipline, subject-specific repositories or journal- or subject-specific subcommunities can alternatively be used in comprehensive repositories such as Zenodo. Suitable repositories can be found, for example, via personal recommendations, guidelines and repository search engines.
- https://opara.zih.tu-dresden.de/
- re3data - Directory and search of repositories
- repository-finder of the HTW Dresden
We are happy to support researchers who want (or need) to move towards Open Data in their endeavours! For this purpose, we offer training and advice on data publication as well as technical assistance (e.g. data conversion, setting up open databases, e.g. based on so-called Linked Open Data, e.g. using Wikibase).
Further information can be found e.g. at
"Open Data is nice, but it's a lot of work"?
(based on Karl Valentin)
With all the advantages described above in mind, one may well ask what could be the reason for the fact that Open Data is still being lived rather timidly in everyday life. For example, the majority of all research data is still inaccessible in the "data silo".
Our experience shows that many researchers would be quite willing to make part of their data reusable at the end of a project. But they often shy away from the effort involved in this step in the form of data preparation (sorting out unsuitable data, cleaning up the data, documentation).
And this is exactly where research data management comes into play: If, during the active project phase, work is already being carried out according to the standards of good FDMs, the majority of the steps mentioned have already been completed - then the last step, namely publishing the data at the end of the project (or, for example, after your own publication), is only a small one.
- Request a lecture/workshop or consultation.