Research Data Management: Selecting a Data Repository

Guide of resources related to the many aspects of research data management. Data management encompasses the processes surrounding collecting, organizing, describing, sharing, and preserving data.

Choosing a Data Repository

UW has a membership with the generalist data repository Dryad. Use our guide to see if Dryad is the right place for you to deposit your data.

There are three different types of repositories where UW researchers can deposit articles (and other written output) and data for sharing at no cost (membership fees are covered by UW Libraries). For data, many disciplines have preferred discipline-specific repositories. If your discipline does not have a preferred repository, there are also institutional and general repositories that take data from all fields. Below you will find links to resources to help you find the right repository for your data.

UW Libraries provides access to three repositories for use by UW researchers at no cost:

ResearchWorks, our institutional repository (typically used for papers, white papers, preprints, OA versions of articles, etc.)
Dryad, used to deposit and share data in a public, open access repository
Qualitative Data Repository, used to share qualitative data that may have access restrictions associated with sharing.

List of Data Repositories by Category

Discipline-specific Repositories

Registry of Research Data Repositories by Subject
A search tool for identifying and locating repositories by subject.
Commons Open Repository Exchange
Commons Open Repository Exchange (CORE) is an Open Access repository for the humanities.

General Repositories

Dataverse
An open source research repository.
Dryad
A repository specifically for data sets attached to publications.
FAIRsharing Generalist Repository Comparison Chart
A comparison chart designed to assist researchers in finding a generalist repository should no domain repository be available to preserve their research data.
figshare
An open source repository.
Mendeley Data
A secure cloud-based repository for data storage.
Open Science Framework
Open Science Framework, or OSF, is an open platform that provides sharing services.
Registry of Research Data Repositories
Search tool for identifying and locating repositories for research data. (Merged with Databib in 2015.)
Synapse
Store and share projects on Synapse. Also provides DOI minting.
Zenodo
A general-purpose open repository operated by CERN.

Institutional Repositories

University of Washington ResearchWorks Archive
ResearchWorks is a permanent, safe service for providing access to articles, technical reports, datasets, images, and other file types produced at the University of Washington by faculty and researchers.
UW Tacoma Digital Commons
The UW Tacoma Digital Commons site.

Data Publishing

Nature's Recommended Data Repositories
Nature shares a list of recommended repositories for a variety of scientific disciplines.
Open Domain-Specific Data Sharing Repositories
The NIH has a list of open repositories based on domain.

Help from the UW Libraries

The UW Libraries’ Scholarly Communications and Publishing Group (SCP) can help with questions or consultations regarding sharing and publishing your research data, including:

Strategies and workflows for all stages of the research data lifecycle;
Finding and acquiring data;
Locating UW campus departmental resources;
Digital publishing options;
Open data and research impact

And much more. You can contact the SCP department at uwlib-scp@uw.edu.

Publishing & Sharing Research Data

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