As the National Institutes of Health (NIH) new Policy for Data Management and Sharing goes into effect, NIH-funded researchers may be wondering how to ensure they comply with the new requirements. Dryad’s curated data publishing service provides an excellent option for sharing your data and meeting your funder’s expectations.
Dryad provides a simple submission process that makes it easy for researchers to upload your datasets, apply metadata that makes them discoverable and reusable, and get a persistent identifier (DOI) you can use in grant reporting. Once submitted, datasets are made publicly accessible so they can be reused by others in order to advance scientific discovery and collaboration across disciplines. Dryad also provides an extensive library of existing datasets from various sources, including those funded by NIH grants, that are completely free to access and reuse.
We’re proud to be part of the Generalist Repository Ecosystem Initiative (GREI), working with NIH to enable data sharing and reuse and support best practices. With GREI’s help, we hope that more researchers will take advantage of the thousands of open datasets already available on Dryad’s platform, as well as contribute their own findings to further facilitate discovery and exchange between scientists all over the globe.
Learn more about how you can benefit from Dryad as an NIH-funded researcher in the following examples.
I’m an NIH-funded researcher and I want to use Dryad to share my data
As an NIH-funded researcher, I am required to submit my data to an established repository, make it publicly available before the end of my grant period, and ensure that it is of sufficient quality for another researcher to reuse.
Researchers in my field do not have a specialized data repository that we commonly use and my research has generated data in several different formats. My data do not include any personally identifying information or other information that might be unethical to make publicly available.
I want to ensure that my data are discoverable, citable, and connected to an article I plan to publish in order to comply with the requirements of my grant and so that others can validate and build upon my work.
Dryad is a great fit because it can accept data in any field and any format, publishes my data with a license that permits unrestricted reuse, makes my data widely discoverable, and conforms to my funder’s expectations.
Depositing with Dryad is simple. I login at datadryad.org using my ORCID iD and check to see if my institution is a Dryad member. I complete Dryad’s straightforward submission process, which collects information (metadata) that makes my data discoverable and reusable. I make sure to indicate NIH as the granting organization and enter my grant number. I upload my data files and a detailed ReadMe describing my methods, the file structure and contents of my submission, variable definitions, and other information necessary for reuse. Through Dryad’s integration with Zenodo, I also seamlessly upload code needed to replicate my analyses. I receive a digital object identifier (DOI) upon submission, which I can use in my article’s data availability statement and my grant reports to NIH.
Within a few days, a Dryad curator will confirm whether my data are appropriate for open sharing, have all the metadata needed for sharing and reuse, and meet ethical standards for publication. They will also offer guidance on best practices for creating reusable data and help me navigate publication requirements. They will not attempt to assess the rigor of my methods or validate my findings.
My data will be published openly and permanently available at datadryad.org.
I’m a researcher and I want to find research data to validate findings, reuse data, and build on work within my discipline
I am a researcher interested in the application of glycosyltransferases for drug development. I am looking for data to use in a meta-analysis. I try several strategies to identify as much relevant data as I can in Dryad.
- Use Dryad’s search interface. I enter my keyword (e.g., “glycotransferase”) at https://datadryad.org/search. I can refine results by subject, geography, journal, institutional affiliation of the authors, file extensions, and funders.
- Use Dryad’s browse features. I can browse by place name, subject, journal, or institution at https://datadryad.org/search.
- Use Dryad’s open API. I can search for keywords (e.g., “glycotransferase”) using our open API. Learn how at https://datadryad.org/api/v2/docs/.
- Search aggregators and indexes. I can find Dryad data alongside data from other sources in DataCite Commons, Google Dataset Search, Google, Web of Science, Scopus, and more.
- Check data availability statements. Dryad integrates with dozens of journals, making it simple for authors to deposit data when they submit a manuscript. I can find Dryad datasets connected to publications in over 1200 academic journals.
All data in Dryad are licensed under the Creative Commons Public Domain License Waiver (also known as CC0). That means that any data I find will be free to access and to reuse without restriction. ###Feedback and questions are always welcome, to hello@datadryad.org. To keep in touch with the latest updates from Dryad, follow us on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn and subscribe to our quarterly newsletter.