Figshare, in partnership with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has announced the pilot launch of a new generalist data repository for all NIH-funded researchers, continuing the NIH’s efforts toward a permanent home for all datasets generated by the research funded by the NIH. The curated NIH data repository is available to use now at NIH.figshare.com.
All NIH-funded researchers can immediately make use of the repository to upload data and publish datasets that underlie publication figures or enhance rigor and reproducible research results. At the point of journal article publication, NIH-funded researchers should make available all of the digital files needed to reproduce the findings. By uploading data to NIH Figshare, researchers will be able to take advantage of an easy-to-use interface, usage metrics to assist in measuring impact, and a DOI (Digital Object Identifier) for persistently and publicly identifying and citing data for use in annual reviews about re-use.
The partnership provides a data repository to store any NIH-funded research that does not already have a designated home in a subject-specific repository. The curated NIH data repository is intended to be a supplement to those solutions and not a replacement. The repository is free to use and free for others to reuse.
The repository will be curated by trained data librarians. To start, the curation will be limited to key priorities such as appropriate licensing, linking to funding information and descriptive metadata to ensure data is as reproducible and reusable as possible for both humans and machines. Researchers will also be able to track the impact of their datasets through citation counts and altmetrics.
The long term aim of the year-long project is to align with both Government Policies and the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) Data Principles through indexing in search engines like Google Dataset Search, clear reuse licensing, a robust API for pushing and pulling data to and from NIH.figshare.com, and thorough, curated metadata. The functionality of the system will continue to evolve as requirements and recommendations on FAIR data are developed by experts.
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