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Research Data Management: Archiving and publishing data

Archiving and publishing data

 

Archiving your data will ensure continued access for you, and for others should you choose to publish or share your data. You can place your data in managed archival storage by creating a Data Record in Stash.

In all cases research data should be retained for a number of years after your research project has ended. Check the Archiving your research data section on this page of the Library website to discover the period of retention that applies to your data.

You may also be instructed or encouraged to publish your research data. Providing access to your data after your project has ended can bring a number of benefits. 

Consider publishing your research data for these reasons:

  • Impact: Sharing data enhances the visibility of your research.
  • Integrity: Open data fosters trust and transparency.
  • Future Reuse: Published data sparks innovation and insights.
  • Funder requirements: Meet grant requirements by sharing data.
  • Publisher requirements: Many publishers require data sharing.

Before you publish your data, check if you have the right to do so. Consider any sensitivity or confidentiality issues, or any licensing or contractual obligations that may apply.

Preparing your research data for publication

 

You can publish your research data at any time. However, it is common practice to align the timing of your data publication alongside your research outputs (e.g. journal articles).  

To prepare your data for publication:

  • Make data FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Re-usable).
  • Convert files to open, non-proprietary formats.
  • Include descriptive and technical metadata.
  • Provide clear citation and licensing (e.g. Creative Commons).
  • Select a reliable data repository (e.g. UTS Stash).
  • Fulfil all legal and ethical obligations (see below).

Dealing with 'sensitive' data

 

Sensitive data has features that mean there are reasons for withholding the data from public view or modifying the data before it is published. This can include, for example, data that could be used to identify an individual, community, species, object, process or location that brings a risk of discrimination, harm, or unwanted attention.

If your research data is considered sensitive, you will already have had to consider a range of guidelines and regulations designed to protect the data when conducting your research. There are additional factors to take into account prior to publication.

Before preparing sensitive data for publication, consider if de-identification is appropriate, the environment in which it will be published, which de-identification techniques you might use, how you might validate these techniques, and how you will assess the risk of re-identification. You may need to make significant changes to the data which will impact its suitability for secondary use.

If you are working with personally identifiable information or commercially sensitive third-party information, you must at minimum:

  1. Obtain consent: Obtain explicit permission from the human participants involved in your study or the commercial organisation/ third-party where the information came from. 
  2. Seek approval from Ethics: Obtain explicit permission from the relevant UTS Ethics Committees.
  3. De-identify the data: Remove or anonymise any personally identifiable information to make identifying individuals from the published data impossible.

 

Useful sites:
UTS resources:
Data de-identification tools:

Steps to publish your research data at UTS

 

Here are the steps to publish your research data at UTS using Stash:

Data Availability Statements

 

A Data Availability Statement is a concise description found in research articles or publications, outlining how and where others can access or obtain the underlying data. This statement is increasingly required by journal publishers. 

See below for examples: