Research Data Management

The University recommends all researchers publish their research data, either in Notre Dame's Research Online repository or similar platform. Other funders such as NHMRC and ARC also strongly recommend open data publication.

In order to address concerns about research reproducibility and integrity, some journals and major publishers now require that the data supporting any articles published is made publicly available. Publishers include BioMed Central, Elsevier, Nature, PLOS, and Springer.  The video below outlines ways that the publisher Elsevier makes data available. These data publication requirements can be sometimes waived if the data is sensitive or confidential, or if the data cannot be sufficiently anonymised.

Please contact the ResearchOnline Team at researchonline@nd.edu.au to learn more about publishing your data.

Elsevier. (July 21, 2017). Research Data [Video file]. https://youtu.be/-PcwOWiHcP8

To make it easy for your published dataset be reused appropriately, it's critical to let other researchers know clearly what they can and can't do with the dataset. These permissions are usually set out and clarified by applying a license to the published dataset.

Applying a standard, robust, well-defined license to a dataset means that anyone reusing that dataset will be confident in what they have permission to do and they can act in legal certainty.

For licensing datasets, Notre Dame generally recommends using the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). When the data is in the form of software/code, the BSD 3-Clause Software Licence is recommended. Both these licenses will allow anyone to reuse your dataset for any purpose, as long as they give you proper attribution and credit.

It's important to identify any potential restrictions on the sharing of data due to privacy concerns. If this is the case, you might have to anonymise or de-identify the data. This way, a researcher can still reap the benefits of making their data available, while respecting the privacy of their research subjects.

Methods of anonymising include:

• aggregating locational or population data
• transcription redaction
• replacing respondent identifiers with generic identifiers

Methods such as these are outlined in the links below from the ARDC and the UK Data Service.

An embargo is a request by a researcher to delay the publication of their dataset until a specified time. Embargoes (or embargo periods) are most commonly used when researchers want to publish datasets, but are currently unable to due to reasons such as data sensitivity, impending publication plans or industry/funder agreements. This delay can help researchers who still wish to receive the benefits of publishing data when external factors currently prohibit its publication.

Additionally, researchers may choose to make the metadata for a dataset available immediately but only provide access to actual dataset after the embargo period.

As applying an embargo restricts the Accessibility of the data, researchers may be asked to provide a case or justification to funders/publishers for the application of the embargo.

The University has incorporated the following globally recognised PIDs into our research systems (IRMA, ResearchData@ND and ResearchOnline@ND), in order to adhere to the FAIR Data Principles. These PIDs facilitate connections to external research resources and systems such as the ARC's Research Management System (RMS), Scopus and SciVal, and various publishers and funders.

DOIs: One of the benefits of publishing your data through Notre Dame's institutional repository, ResearchOnline, is that the data will be allocated a DOI (Digital Object Identifier). DOIs are used as unique identifiers for research outputs so as to facilitate efficient citation and avoid ambiguity.

ORCIDs: ORCIDs identify individual researchers and are widely used.  A number of funders and publishers already require that researchers provide their ORCID as part of the application/submission process. The Research Office requests that all researchers create an ORCID to ensure that both individuals and the institution receive recognition for all research contributions.

RAiD: The Research Activity Identifier tags all activities and resources from a research project. By linking these entities and enabling research provenance and attribution, persistent identifiers lay the foundation for improved tracking of research impact.

ROR: A Research Organization Registry ID is increasingly being requested by publishers when submitting research outputs including data. The ROR helps disambiguate organisations with similar names (eg University of Notre Dame Australia, University of Notre Dame [Indiana], Notre Dame University [Philippines]), and allow accurate attribution for research.