Research data is a valuable part of scholarly communication, with funders (e.g. UKRI), publishers and both the Research Ethics Policy and the Open Research Policy encouraging you to share wherever possible.
The UK Data Service provides a useful list of reasons to share data including -
Ideally, you should incorporate a strategy for sharing data into your Data Management Plan and ethical approval application. This will help you to think about the data you will collect, the type of participant consent you will request and any data anonymisation you need to carry out. It will also help you think about which data repository to use, such as our Thesis and Research Data Repository.
You should have considered the ethics of your research during the planning stages of your project in order gain ethical approval and to write your Data Management Plan. Before sharing your research data, revisit these and consider the ethical, commercial and legal implications e.g. -
If you are unsure, please contact your School's Local Research Ethics Coordinator or the Research Services team for advice.
Where you choose to deposit your data will depend on your subject area/discipline, your funder requirements and your own requirements.
Data access statements, or Data Availability Statements, inform readers where the underlying materials data associated with a paper are available, and how the research materials can be accessed. The statement should include links to the dataset, where applicable and appropriate.
UKRI’s Guidance on best practice in the management of research data states: “Publicly funded research data are a public good, produced in the public interest, which should be made openly available with as few restrictions as possible in a timely and responsible manner.”
Data access statements are required by many funders and scientific journals. It is also a requirement of the UKRI Open Access policy.
A data access statement usually includes -
Where to access the data (e.g. a data repository)
A persistent identifier, such as a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) or accession number, or a link to a permanent record for the dataset
Details of any restrictions on accessing the data and a justifiable explanation (e.g. for ethical, legal or commercial reasons)
Underlying research materials are research data as defined in the Concordat on Open Research Data and can include code, software, numerical scores, textual records, images, sounds, objects and manuscripts.
Not all data is born digital, for example archival material, lab notes, photographs. This type of material should still be included in a data access statement, for example:
Non-digital research data supporting this publication are stored at a safe location at [insert name of School or institution] and can be made available on request, subject to the requestor travelling to [insert location]. Further information about the data and how to request access are available from the [insert repository name] repository at [insert DOI].
Guidance on managing and digitising non-digital data is available on the OpenAIRE website.
Some journals provide a specific data access section. Otherwise, you should use the acknowledgments section.
Leeds Beckett University's Open Research Policy sets out our commitment to making the products of our research (both outputs and research data) publicly available.
Information about Leeds Beckett's commitment to research integrity, as well as policies related to research ethics and misconduct can be found here.
The UK Data Service has useful guidance on managing your research data throughout its lifecycle, including planning, sharing, data ethics, copyright and storage.
