Archiving Data

Why archive data for long term preservation?

Archiving data ensures its long-term preservation, protecting it from obsolescence, loss, or irreversible damage.

Tri-Council grant recipients are required to deposit research into a digital repository all digital research data, metadata and code that directly support the research conclusions in journal publications and pre-prints that arise from agency-supported research. Determining what counts as relevant research data, and which data should be preserved, is often highly contextual and should be guided by disciplinary norms.

The deposit must be made by time of publication. The choice of repository may be guided by disciplinary expectations and the recipient’s own judgment, but in all cases the repository must ensure safe storage, preservation and curation of the data.

Even if your research is not Tri-Agency funded, it is good research practice to deposit data that can be made shareable into a recognized data repository.

Selective list of established options

Borealis 
The University of Windsor supports data archiving through the University of Windsor's institutional Borealis repository.

• This is a secure environment that conforms to industry best practices for maintaining data integrity and longevity.
• Data owners can retain complete control over who can access their data. Specific datasets can be made freely available, available only on request, or restricted to only certain IPs, to an individual account(s) or to specific groups.
• Borealis is widely used by academic institutions in Canada and the U.S. and datasets are indexed and searchable across institutions.
• Borealis is most suited for datasets up to 2GB.

FRDR (Federated Research Data Repository)
Intended for long term preservation of larger datasets. 1TB of repository storage is available to all faculty members at Canadian post-secondary institutions. The Federated Research Data Repository (FRDR) is a system for researchers in Canada to deposit and share research data and to facilitate discovery of research data through federated searching across repositories. Sign in with your Google, ORCID, or Compute Canada account. Data curation support provided by Portage. Some key features include:

• Fast and efficient data upload and download for large datasets through Globus File Transfer, as well as web browser transfers for smaller datasets
• A fully-bilingual user interface and robust documentation available in English and French
• DOI registration for datasets provides a persistent identifier that can be used for data citation
• Support for multiple authentication providers, including Compute Canada, ORCID, and a growing list of Canadian postsecondary institutions
• Optional embargoes on data and metadata records
• Allows multiple people to collaborate on a submission
• Support for Special Collections by research groups with organizational branding and links to external web content
• A responsive support service with business hours coverage across Canada (support@frdr-dfdr.ca)
• Planned feature extension, scheduled releases, and updates
• Managed repository storage spread across multiple Compute Canada Federation hosting sites
• Secure repository storage for a minimum of 10 years after deposit
• Regular backups and geographically distributed storage for research data
• On-site system administration and ongoing hardware maintenance
• Faculty members and their designates at Canadian post-secondary institutions will have access to a large, default allocation of repository storage. Additional storage may be provided upon request.

ICPSR
Another option is to deposit data through ICPSR, a large and internationally known archive of social science data. ICPSR allows for wider dissemination of social science data, provides standardized citations, and collects bibliographic citations to publications that use deposited data, demonstrating the impact of their deposited datasets. The library's subscription to ICPSR gives us free access to depositing at OpenICPSR. 

Re3data.org
A directory of research data repositories searchable by discipline and field of research.