Deposit and publish data
There are many benefits to publish research data, but there are also several things to consider before sharing data.
Why publish research data
“… science moves faster in an open world” / Steven Salzberg, Director of the center for Computational Biology, Johns Hopkins University
- Sharing data makes it possible to reuse in other research projects.
- Sharing enables others to confirm findings, disseminate you research and makes the research process more transparent.
- Sharing data can create further opportunities for recognition and acknowledgements, e.g. citations and registered downloads for datasets.
- Sharing data can lead to new possibilities for collaboration between research groups, nationally and internationally.
- By sharing your data in a trusted repository, you will have a secure copy available in a safe place.
In short, depositing data underlying your research results in a trusted repository is an important building block in a transparent and reproducible research practice.
Where to publish data
The general recommendation is to use a high quality repository for depositing and publishing your research data.
KTH has a general data repository as a service, KTH Data Repository. Here you can deposit and prepare documentation and static versions of data and source code for your research project already before publishing data and results. When it’s time to wrap up the project, you can assess whether data should be kept for internal archive or published as open data. Data published in KTH Data Repository's open data set will soon also be visible on the national research data platform that is launched in 2025.
For some research domains, there are trusted, high quality domain-specific repositories where you can deposit data. In some fields, journals also require you to use specific repositories. Such repositories usually have specific guidelines on formats and documentation for that type of domain-specific data.
There are also some general repositories that can be used for open data that are deemed to ensure long-term storage for at least ten years. In some scientific domains data can also be published in specific data journals.
You can browse for data repositories at re3data.org and read more about high quality data repositories in this guide listing such repositories.
For other research outputs such as source code and machine-learning models there may be other types of services available for sharing such digital research outputs. A general recommendation is to link between different digital objects generated in research so it is possible to disseminate all digital objects related to your published results.
How to publish data
The submission process often differ and different repositories have different guidelines for how to deposit data in the specific repository. Read more on different policies (link will be updated soon)
In order for the data to be re-used in further research, it is recommended to follow the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Resuable).
When to publish data
KTH Data Repository can be used for documenting and saving static versions of your data early on in the research process. When you submit a manuscript for publication, different journals may have different guidelines on how to submit data that are the basis of the results described in your manuscript. Peer-reviewers often want to access the data underlying the results when reviewing the manuscript. Read more on different policies for data availability when you publish your results in different journals or publishing platforms (link will be updated soon).