Module 7 Handbook

You will find that each type data repository fulfills a different need and set of requirements.

Research data repositories

There are two types of research data repository, both of which broadly allow anyone to contribute data:

1: Discipline-specific

Examples include:

• Protein Data Bank
• ChemSpider

2: Interdisciplinary

Examples include:

• Dataverse
• FigShare
• Zenodo

Many are backed by large communities of funders as well as academic journals.

Government data platforms

These provide a platform through which any government or country specific data can be accessed.

Governments often have clauses which require anyone working with specific types of data, be it as a government department or third party organisation, to make data available via the official government platform.

Examples include

• data.gov.uk
• data.gov.in
• opendata.go.tz

Curated data repositories

• Provide sustainable access to carefully managed and curated datasets
• Offer data services (such as direct access to the data via an API rather than just file downloads)
• Sustainable through country memberships and donor contributions
• Provides most flexibility for specific data services

If considering curated data repositories, you should be aware that establishing and sustaining a curated data repository is challenging and many are not able to be sustained long term.

Examples include:

• Gates Data Exchange
• FAO Data bank
• World Bank open data portal
• Land portal

Code and data platforms

These are hybrid platforms somewhere between the research data repository and the curated data repository. They can offer you management features such as:

• version control
• ingest pipelines
• validation services

One of the most popular platforms for both code and data is GitHub.