UniData encourages the deposit of data in order to promote the secondary analysis, the data sharing and the reuse of data. The UniData Archive, supported by the IT services of the University of Milano-Bicocca, guarantees the long-term data preservation and their access to the whole scientific community. All data are documented and archived according to the international standards.
Why deposit data with UniData?
Data created or generated during research or administrative processes are valuable resources that can be used and reused for future scientific and educational purposes. UniData believes in sharing data and its possibility to create new knowledge from data already collected. The data sharing:
- reinforces the scientific discussion and encourages scientific enquiry
- allows the data replicability of results
- facilitate research beyond the scope of the original research
- make new collaborations possible among data producers and users
- improves research impact and its visibility
- assign a persistent Digital Object Identifier (DOI) in order to make archived data immediately available online, researchable and quotable
- reduces costs by avoiding duplicate data collection efforts
- provides rich resources for education and training
- improves methods of data collection and measurement through the scrutiny of others
What services UniData offers?
UniData, supported by the IT services of the University of Milano-Bicocca, offers the following services related to deposited data:
- data safeguard in a secure environment
- long-term data preservation and data back-up
- data visibility through online catalogues
- data dissemination in suitable format for reuse
- data access management
- monitoring and data use management
- data promotion and user support
- enhances and adds value to data by making them easier to use
How to deposit data?
Deposits should include all data and documentation necessary to independently read and interpret the data collection. In particular, it should include:
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- Data: UniData encourages deposit of data in usable format by main softwares for statistical analysis (SAS, STATA, SPSS, R). Other widespread formats are also acceptable (CSV, Excel, etc.)
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- Documentation: Documentation files are integral to interpreting a data collection. Examples of documentation include questionnaire, codebooks, data collection instruments, summary statistics and bibliographies of publications pertaining to the data.
- Potential data description: It includes a study description, which provides summary information about the data collection. Study descriptions are valuable resources to data users, and include both general information, such as study title and summary, as well as more detailed information about the study design and methodology. This document, however, is not strictly binding in order to deposit data and it can also be reproduced by UniData.
Deposit occurs by signing an agreement between the data producer and UniData in order to ensure the sharing and preservation of deposited data, and establish the terms of data use.
To deposit data see the agreement below and, later, contact us.
Annexed documents: