Research Data Management

The McGill Library offers an institutional data repository, the McGill University Dataverse, as a local solution for research data publishing and archiving. McGill faculty, students, and staff are welcome to deposit datasets in the McGill Dataverse repository. All data are stored securely on servers located in Canada. Data can be publicly accessible, available to specific individuals, or private/restricted. 

The McGill Dataverse can be found by following this URL: https://borealisdata.ca/dataverse/mcgill

For more information about the Dataverse, including how to make an account and deposit data, please visit the following URL: https://www.mcgill.ca/library/services/data-services/sharing/dataverse

For training on using Dataverse, please see this series of self-paced online modules: Dataverse 101: A Portage Training Module Series

A wide variety of additional data repositories and databases are available that archive research data from many subject areas. Coverage varies by discipline.   

McGill researchers who wish to look for a domain-specific data repository are encouraged to start by using Re3data.org which provides a comprehensive listings of disciplinary and institutional repositories to host and share research data.  

Other places to find lists of data repositories include: 

• Nature - Recommended data repositories
• Open Access Directory (OAD) - List of repositories and databases for open data
• PLOS One - Recommended data repositories 

The following list names a few, reputable general data repositories:

• Figshare - a general purpose repository often used in partnership w/ PLOS publications.
• Dryad - frequently used for scientific and medical publication
• Zenodo - a general purpose repository that integrates with Github for archiving and minting DOIs for Github repos
• ICPSR - a repository commonly used for social science data
• Qualitative Data Repository - for qualitative data, typically used for digital humanities and social sciences
• FRDR - The Federated Research Data Repository is a Canadian solution for archiving large/big data 

Persistent identifiers are:

• A publishing initiative
• A permanent link that points to your data, making the data findable (e.g. DOI)
• Your data might move locations (URLs, repositories, etc), or the way we access the internet might change, but the DOI will always be the same
• Machine-readable

Persistent identifiers allow for:

• Archiving and preserving data (digitally) for the long-term
• Linking a data article to a published study (normalizing best practices)
• Connect PID of Dataset with DOI of journal article, and then subsequent studies that reuse the data, potentially leading to higher citation impact (up to 25%)

Data journals publish data articles, which are mini-publications about a dataset or database. Similar to the peer review process for the write-up of a journal article or study, the data would be peer reviewed (for an example of peer review guidelines for data articles, see the Earth Science System Data Journal guide). Data articles can be about data that underlie existing publications or they can be independent publications. Publishing data as their own research product allows you to cite the data easily in subsequent publications, link the data to publications, and potentially receive credit for the data itself in addition to any related studies.

• Data articles
• Data papers
• Data notes
• Data descriptors

• Data underlying or linked to another study
• Orphan data, dark data, null results
• Updating an existing database or creating a database as a resource
• Pilot studies/preliminary results
• Reporting additional controls
• Descriptions of data

A (slightly outdated but still accurate) list of data journals

Additional information on data journals:

• "How to publish your data in a data journal" (from the NatureJobs job blog)
• "Data papers as a new form of knowledge organization in the field of research data" (Schöpfel et al 2019)
• "Data journals: incentivizing data access and documentation within the scholarly communication system" (Walters 2020)

• McGill users only
• Open access resource
• Free resource
• In-library-use only
• Catalogue record