LibGuides: Research Data: Finding research data

What is research data?

Research data is information that has been collected or created to validate research findings. It can be numerical, descriptive or visual and raw or analysed.

Some examples of research data are laboratory notebooks, data files, questionnaires and interview transcripts, photographs and slides.

Research data repositories

Research data repositories store and manage research data. The simplest way to find a repository is to use a directory/registry service.

Registry of Research Data Repositories (re3data) - is 'a global registry of research data repositories that covers research data repositories from different academic disciplines.'
The Open Access Directory - 'This is a list of repositories and databases for open data.'
Data Cite - find and use research data. Provides DOIs.
Figshare - makes available research outputs including datasets.
Zenodo - 'an open dissemination research data repository' provided by CERN.

Government sources

Office for National Statistics- official statistics and datasets.
UK government data - data from UK government departments, agencies, public bodies and local authorities.

Health data

Public Health Scotland - Scottish health service data. Previously Information Services Division (ISD).

Image data

Image Data Resource (IDR) - contains multidimensional life sciences image data and 'seeks to store, integrate and serve image datasets from published scientific studies.'

General search engines

Dataset Search - Google search tool to find datasets.

Why use research data?

You can save time and effort by reusing data
You can reuse data in new ways to carry out further research

Remember to check the licence terms before you reuse data and always cite your source.

Databases

You can filter database search results to show datasets.

For example, Web of Science Core Collection has links from search results to articles with data sets. Choose to Filter your search results by Associated Data.

Web of Science - Core Collection This link opens in a new window
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The Web of Science Core Collection comprises a set of databases covering scholarly literature in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities and examines proceedings of international conferences, symposia, seminars, colloquia, workshops, and conventions.
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Data Citation Index This link opens in a new window
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The Data Citation Index provides access to data from from over 200 data repositories. It covers multiple subjects and regions and contains over 5 million records.
Strathclyde users must sign in to access many library eResources. Please follow any on-screen instructions and enter either your DS username and password or your University email address and password where prompted.
UK Data Service This link opens in a new window
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Access to data from the ESDS (Economic and Social Data Service) and Census data for 1971-2011.
Includes data from International Energy Agency, World Bank, OECD, United Nations, Human Rights Atlas, International Monetary Fund.
Two stage authentication process: use your DS login for first stage (Institutional Login); click on help icon above for information on second stage (individual registration).

Research Data at Strathclyde

University of Strathclyde's Knowledgebase - browse or search for data sets in University of Strathclyde publications.
Strathprints - browse or search for data sets in open access publications from the University of Strathclyde.

Citing Data Sets

Ball, A. & Duke, M. (2015). ‘How to Cite Datasets and Link to Publications’. DCC How-to Guides. Edinburgh: Digital Curation Centre. Available online: http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/how-guides
EndNote, reference management software, has a datasets reference type.