Data deposit is open to all members of the Duke Community for their research data with a valid netID.
Research data are the original sources or materials (born digital or converted to digital) that were created or gathered in the process of your research. They serve as the foundation from which you draw conclusions and produce results/findings (by testing hypotheses, studying trends, providing evidence, or refuting claims). They may be numeric or qualitative, structured or unstructured. Among many possible forms, data may take the form of notebooks, statistical or spatial data tables, audio or visual recordings, photographs, or models. The end results or findings of your research, such as monographs, articles, white papers, or presentations, are not considered research data.
In short, Duke community members can deposit:
We reserve the right to reject deposits at our discretion should they not meet our collection scope or submission guidelines (improper consent, conflicts with IRB protocol, unclear copyright, data transfer restrictions, missing or inadequate end-user documentation, etc.). If your data are out of scope for the RDR, we are happy to help you identify an appropriate repository. Please contact us at datamanagement@duke.edu.
The Duke Research Data Policy mandates that:
"Duke University expects research personnel to retain, via archives and/or placement in established repositories, research data and outputs for a minimum of six years after the final reporting or publication of a project"
Deposit in the RDR will fulfill the terms of the Duke Research Data Policy. Additionally, deposit will fulfill many of the data sharing requirements as set forth in funder and journal data sharing mandates. More information on how the Duke Research Data Repository meets data-sharing requirements is available on our Grant Support page.
By depositing this Content ("Content") in the Duke Research Data Repository ("RDR"), you agree that you are solely responsible for any consequences of uploading this Content to the RDR and making it publicly available, and you represent and warrant that:
You understand that the RDR will do its best to provide long-term access to your Content. The RDR will, consistent with the standardized license selected by you, provide access, reproduce, distribute and publicly display the Content, in whole or in part, in order to secure, preserve and make it publicly available. RDR may also migrate the Content to other media or formats, or make other copies to preserve its public access.
While RDR will do its best to provide long-term access to deposited Content, RDR makes no promises or warranties that this Content will be perpetually or consistently preserved or accessible. In addition, RDR reserves the right to remove Content under the terms of the library's deaccession policy for reasons such as deposits made in conflict with terms of this license, in response to a valid DMCA notice, or in response to a valid court order compelling the removal of such Content.
Content within the files are governed by the RDR Data Deposit Agreement. Data are offered with no warranty or claim of fitness for any purpose. In no event shall Duke University be liable for any actual, incidental or consequential damages arising from use of these files.
If you discover that a link is broken or that you are not able to download the files you need, please contact datamanagement@duke.edu.
A license helps secondary users understand how they can or cannot use your data. The default waiver suggested for research data deposited within the Duke Research Data Repository is a CC0 public domain dedication. The CC0 waiver reduces many legal and technical obstacles to data reuse that can arise from applying other licenses, such as attribution stacking (the very long attribution statements sometimes created when someone synthesizes multiple sources into a unified dataset.) Since in many jurisdictions data may not be copyrightable, the CC0 waiver also removes legal questions related to the copyright status of datasets. While the CC0 waiver does not require attribution, growing community and data citation norms as well as the Acceptable Use Policy create an expectation that users will properly cite data in the same manner they would any other form of scholarly communication.
If releasing your data into the public domain is not appropriate, data depositors may elect to apply another license to their data. We encourage data depositors to carefully consider both their rights to assign a license to the data as well as what license might be required by other stakeholders including funders and journals.
More information about the licenses offered in the Duke Research Data Repository is available on our Licenses page. If you have questions about licensing your data, please contact datamanagement@duke.edu.
The Duke Research Data Repository provides 300 GB of preservation storage per deposit for Duke researchers (defined as graduate, post-doctoral, research staff, and faculty) at no cost. For larger datasets, please contact us to discuss the feasibility for the RDR to accept your deposit based upon the scope and scale of your data. Additional preservation costs may also be assessed based upon the size of the submission.
If you are including the RDR in your grant application for data preservation and storage, please contact us at datamanagement@duke.edu. We can make sure the RDR is appropriate to your project and provide you with boilerplate language or Letters of Support.
The Duke University Libraries has outlined its commitment to the long-term preservation and persistent access to the University's digital assets curated in the RDR within the DUL Preservation Policy. The primary preservation strategies include bit-level preservation including fixity checking and version control, multiple disparate copies, file formats and obsolescence management, and information security. To learn more, consult the complete Preservation Policy.
The Duke Research Data Repository provides access to and preservation of deposited data for a minimum period of 25 years. After that period, the deposited content may be assessed (by metrics including number of downloads and page visits) to determine whether they should remain in the repository. All data removed from the repository is subject to our deaccession policy. In the case of the discontinuation of this service, all reasonable efforts will be made to either integrate content into a suitable subject-based or generalist repository and/or return content to the depositor.
The Duke Research Data Repository will review all human participants data prior to publishing and will require access to necessary documentation (consent forms, IRB protocols, partner agreements) to ensure it meets our requirements for open access. The RDR reserves the right to reject a deposit containing human participants data if proper consent is not apparent, data are not adequately de-identified, and/or the data are on sensitive topics that could pose a higher risk of harm to participants in cases of deductive disclosure. Unconsented Duke patient data cannot be deposited in the RDR per the DUHS Compliance Office. Please contact the Duke Office of Clinical Research via this form for assistance with sharing these types of data.
Persistent identifiers are long-lasting references to a document, file, web page, or other (usually digital) object. Typically, these references may be entered into a web browser and will take you to the specified resource. All datasets in the RDR are assigned a Digital Object Identifier (minted via DataCite) at the level of the complete data package. This DOI is also included in the dataset citation and provides persistent access to the data. The RDR also supports assigning ORCIDs to dataset authors and contributors, which are then sent to DataCite for linking datasets to an author's ORCID profile. RORs (persistent identifiers for organizations) are also automatically added for associated affiliations to help track outputs from institutions and funding agencies.
The purpose of the Duke Research Data Repository is to allow open, immediate access to Duke research data. It is understood that there are times when immediate access may need to be delayed. To meet this need, we allow depositors to delay publication (embargo) of a full dataset (all data and documentation) for up to one year from time of deposit. During the embargo period, a descriptive metadata record for the dataset will be made publicly discoverable in the repository that includes a Digital Object Identifier (DOI). Embargoed files names will be viewable but unable to be downloaded without approval. Contact datamanagement@duke.edu if you need to apply an embargo to a dataset.
As outlined within the Data Deposit Agreement, data producers should make every attempt to ensure that the deposited dataset is in its final publication-ready state. However, we also understand that errors may be discovered post-publication or additional data or documentation files may need to be added. In these cases, the RDR has functionalities that allow you to create a new version of your dataset that will include a new DOI. We will continue to provide access to the previous version of all files to ensure persistent access to previously published materials. (If you need to permanently remove files, see deaccessioning below). Versioning should not be used as a method to add files to a collection from different waves of a study or as a method to preserve data during the active research phase of a project. If you foresee your dataset evolving over time, consider a "release cycle" for your data. If you need to version content already within the repository, see our FAQ.
The mission of the Duke Research Data Repository is to ensure the long-term integrity and accessibility of its contents. If for some legal or ethical reason (such as discovering the inadvertent disclosure of sensitive information) you need to permanently remove files, please reference our Deaccession and DMCA Takedown Policy and complete the Deaccession Request Form. When files are removed from the repository, a "tombstone" metadata page will provide information about what used to be there, permanently accessible via the original persistent identifier (DOI).