Library Subject Guides
The FAIR Data Principles are useful guidelines for sharing data in a way that will enhance reusability.
If you plan to share some of your research data, whether openly or with access restrictions, your data should be made as discoverable and reusable as possible. Working towards making your research data FAIR is a simple way to do this.
Metadata and data is easy to find, by both humans and machines.
Deposit your research data in a trusted or discipline-specific data repository, where you'll be required to provide relevant metadata and the repository will assign a persistent identifier (e.g. a Digital Object Identifier (DOI)) to your data. Your data and metadata will then be searchable and discoverable online. Your shared data is also easier to find and cite when it has a DOI.
Include the DOI for the dataset in the data access statement of associated published outputs.
AccessibleOnce found, humans and machines can access the data and/or metadata.
Deposit your research data in a trusted or discipline-specific data repository, it will have standard protocols in place to support online retrieval.
Where data cannot be shared openly, the metadata record should be openly available and should detail the conditions under which the data may be accessed.
InteroperableData can be integrated with other data and is compatible with applications or workflows for analysis, storage and processing.
Use well-known and preferably open file formats (and software) to enable others to more easily access and reuse your shared data. Ensuring your data is well structured will also enable its reusability.
Make use of standards for metadata and community agreed schemes, vocabularies, keywords, ontologies where these exist.
ReusableMetadata and data is well-described, and data can be replicated and/or combined.
Provide documentation with your shared data, to enable others to understand it.
Link your shared data to its associated published outputs, to provide the contextual information needed to make sense of it. This can be achieved in PURE.
Assign a licence to your shared data, to clarify the terms of its use.
Check how FAIR your research data is using the FAIR Data Self Assessment Tool, a tool provided by the Australian Research Data Commons.
Open data "can be freely used, modified, and shared by anyone for any purpose." - The Open Definition
There are many good reasons why data may not be shared openly. In such circumstances, you should still aim to make data FAIR by making the metadata record openly available and including details of the conditions under which the data may be accessed.
The University supports both open and FAIR data in its data repository, Research Data York.