ACU Research Data Management Toolkit

Publishing data is actively making your research data accessible to others and can include:

• depositing research datasets in an online repository; or
• submitting the data for publication in a data journal. Read the ANDS Data Journal Guide for more information.

Benefits of sharing data:

• increases visibility of research, ensuring that your data can be accessed and cited in the long term;
• increases efficiency of research due to reusability and exposure;
• promotes scientific integrity and replication;
• enhances collaboration;
• provides opportunity for others to build on your data, leading to new research outcomes.

Some funding agreements from the Australian Research Council require researchers to make data publicly available within a specified time frame, generally through deposit in an institutional or discipline-specific public repository. If you are publishing an article, check the publisher's data sharing policy.

Data journals aim to expose datasets more widely. They give researchers an opportunity to publish datasets as separate research outputs, rather than leaving them as supplementary material or a research 'by-product'. Publishing in data journals may be of particular interest to researchers for whom data is a primary research output. Publishing data through a data journal does not necessarily prevent publication of the data analysis and research results in a traditional journal - along with a reference and links to the data journal paper.

Assigning a digital Object identifier (DOI) to your dataset will ensure that the data will always have a persistent link to the original source, ensuring that the original source can be cited and the impact of your data measured. 

DOIs should be applied to your data when it is:

• in a finalised form (with no further changes required)
• being made available via open or mediated access
• going to be cited in a publication or as an output in its own right

If you would like to mint a DOI for your dataset contact Library Research Services

Data citation is the practice of providing reference to datasets. Like traditional bibliographic references, data citations acknowledge the original creator and help other researchers find the dataset.

If you publish an article and have published the data separately, remember to cite your dataset in your article.

Further information on data citation: