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Research Data Management: Sharing Data After Research Completion

Learn how to write a successful data management plan according to funding agency requirements.

Why data sharing?

  • Mandated by grant funders and some publishers
  • Promotes scientific integrity and debate
  • Improves research, leads to advanced science
  • Avoids duplication of research
  • Increases citations to papers with publicly available data

Data Sharing To Do List

 Choose a license for the data

 Select a repository

 Publish in a data journal

Data Sharing

  • Data is considered discoverable facts and therefore not protected by copyright; however, the display of data, such as within a table or figure, is copyrightable
  • Data cannot be copyrighted but it can be owned and licensed using Creative Commons

Each citation style will provide guidance on how to cite a data set. 

Data Sharing Best Practices

  • Licensing data makes it available but on the terms of the researcher (i.e. what others can and cannot do with the data)
  • Anonymize or de-identify data before sharing