Planning and Managing Research Data

The Office of Science and Technology Policy of the White House issued a memorandum in August 2022 to federal funding agencies with new guidelines for updating their respective public access policies for federally-funded research. Often referred to as the "Nelson memo" after the author, the statement, “Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research,” builds on the public access of research memo released in 2013 and recommends agencies: 

1. Update their public access policies as soon as possible, and no later than December 31st, 2025, to make publications and their supporting data resulting from federally funded research publicly accessible without an embargo on their free and public release; 

2. Establish transparent procedures that ensure scientific and research integrity is maintained in public access policies; and,

3. Coordinate with OSTP to ensure equitable delivery of federally funded research results and data

While agencies are responsible for providing specific guidance for implementation, the memo gives insight into changes researchers can anticipate. For example, researchers will be expected to:

• Create and maintain data management and sharing plans

• Publish approved peer-reviewed scholarly publications and scientific data in agency-designated, open access repositories

• Provide metadata for public access, including author and co-author names, affiliations, funding sources, date of publication, and associated persistent identifiers

See also:

• Frequently Asked Questions: 2022 Public Access Policy Guidance

• Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories for Federally Funded Research

Funding agencies are required to update and publish their public access policies by December 31, 2025. The list below provides a list of agencies that have updated and published their public access policies:

• NASA Public Access Policy
  
  

• NIH Public Access Policy
  (effective on July 1, 2025)

• NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy
  (effective on January 25, 2023)
  
  

• NSF Public Access Plan 2.0
  (effective on January 31, 2025)
  
  

• USDA Public Access Policy
  (published June 28, 2023)
  
  

• U.S. Department of Education Public Access Policy
  (published September 28, 2023)

• 2022 OSTP Public Access Policy Guidance Memorandum

• Frequently Asked Questions: 2022 Public Access Policy Guidance

• ARL Public Access to Federally Funded Research and Government Information

• SPARC 2022 Updated OTSP Guidance

• SPARC Fact Sheet: White House OSTP Memo on Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research

Elements in a Data Management Plan include:

1. the types of data, samples, physical collections, software, curriculum materials, and other materials to be produced in the course of the project;

2. the standards to be used for data and metadata format and content (where existing standards are absent or deemed inadequate, this should be documented along with any proposed solutions or remedies);

3. policies for access and sharing including provisions for appropriate protection of privacy, confidentiality, security, intellectual property, or other rights or requirements;

4. policies and provisions for re-use, re-distribution, and the production of derivatives; and

5. plans for archiving data, samples, and other research products, and for preservation of access to them.

• Build your data management plan - The DMPTool helps with creating data management plans that meet funder requirements.

• Preparing your data management plan - This page provides an overview of requirements for the data management plan.

• Proposal Preparation Instructions

• Browse Article and Data Sharing Requirements by Federal Agency, by SPARC

• Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories for Federally Funded Research, by National Science and Technology Council (Subcommittee on Open Science), May 2022

• Selecting a Data Repository, by NIH

• Data Sharing Policies and Expectations, by NIH

• Preparing Your Data Management and Sharing Plan, by NSF

1. Check: Do I have an ORCID Account?
   Go to orcid.org to see if you already have an ORCID ID. Once there, go to the gray search box at the very top of the page and type in your name. The default search is the ORCID Registry.
   
   

2. Create: Create an ORCID ID
   Registering for an ORCID ID is quick and easy. You only need to provide an email address and choose a password to get started. Once the account is created, you will be assigned your unique ORCID iD, and you will be able to more fully develop your ORCID profile.
   
   At UGA, the easiest way to register for an ORCID ID is through your profile in UGA Elements (video tutorial).
   
   

3. Connect: Connect a new or existing ORCID ID to UGA
   By connecting your ORCID ID to UGA, you will allow UGA access to the 'trusted affiliation' and public-level information you choose to share from your ORCID record.

Currently, this connection is through UGA Elements (for faculty, postdocs, and graduate students). Once you have registered and obtained your ORCID iD, go to Optimize publication search to learn how to assign your ORCID iD to your Elements profile. Then go to How to connect your ORCID account to learn how to authorize UGA Elements to access your ORCID profile.

You always maintain complete control over your ORCID record, including what is shown and shared with UGA and the general public.

UGA Elements currently uses your ORCID ID in three ways:

1. Publication searches will automatically claim any publications associated with your ORCID ID.

2. Your ORCID profile publication list will act as another source of publications for the Elements search engine to populate your Elements publication list.

3. You can authorize Elements to write to your ORCID profile your publications and affiliation information.

There are several ways to add your works to your ORCID profile:

• Synchronize your Elements publications to your ORCID works
  If you have maintained your publications in your UGA Elements profile, then you can authorize Elements to write those publications as Works in your ORCID profile. Instructions are available in the Elements support site.
  
  

• Link your works from another system
  Some ORCID member organizations - such as MLA, Pubmed Central, Scopus, and Digital Science Dimensions - have built search and link tools that allow you to import information about publications and other works into your ORCID record from their databases. The linking process can begin on the ORCID site, or at the organization's website.
  
  

• Import a BibTeX file of your works
  ORCID has a tool that allows you to import your research works from a BibTeX (.bib) file into your ORCID record. BibTeX is a platform-independent, plain-text format used for bibliographic citations. BibTeX files can be created and edited using many popular reference management tools, such as Google Scholar Citations, EndNote, Papers, etc.
  
  

• Manually add information about your works
  To add a work yourself, click Add works, then +Add manually, and a box will appear where you can manually enter a work citation.

1. Who can get an ORCID ID? Are there any special requirements for ORCID membership?

Anybody can register for an ORCID ID in minutes. There are no special requirements for ORCID membership. Having an active scholarship record helps you make the most of your ORCID ID.

2. What other platforms can I link my ORCID ID to?
   You can link your ORCID ID to UGA Elements, SCOPUS, Author ID, ResearcherID, Digital Science Dimensions. ORCID is integrating with other systems rapidly.
   
   

3. How do I know if I already have an ORCID account?
   If you haven’t registered for an ORCID account, you will not have established one. But if you are unsure whether or not you registered, read the Check section of our ORCID@UGA Registration page.
   
   

4. What’s the advantage of connecting my UGA Elements profile to my ORCID ID?
   UGA Elements currently uses your ORCID ID in three ways:

• Publication searches will automatically claim any publications associated with your ORCID ID

• Your ORCID profile publication list will act as another source of publications for the Elements search engine to populate your Elements publication list

• You can authorize Elements to write to your ORCID profile your publications and affiliation information.
  
  

5. How does ORCID handle privacy of my information?
   When you create an ORCID account, you have full control of the privacy of your information. Be sure to review the Privacy Settings in your account to customize access to your information. Privacy Settings include the options of making your information Public, Private, or available to Trusted Parties.
   
   

6. What are Trusted Parties? What information will a Trusted Party have?
   A Trusted Party is an organizational member of ORCID with which you can connect your information. For example, UGA is a Trusted Party member of ORCID. You will always be asked to authorize access to your information by Trusted Parties; every portion of your data can be assigned one of the three levels of privacy: Public, Private, or available to Trusted Parties.
   
   

7. Where can I find additional resources about ORCID?

• ORCID Knowlege Base

• ORCID Video Tutorials

While both DOIs and Handles serve as systems for uniquely identifying digital objects, they work a bit differently. 

• The Handle system is a proprietary system of assigned identifiers, and the DOI system is an implementation based on the Handle system that maintains a registry of metadata related to the identifier. For example, you can think of the Handle system as a computer operating system (Windows or MacOS) and the DOI system as an application built to run on that OS.

• DOIs are used primarily for scholarly and professional outputs, while Handles are used for a broader range of general digital objects beyond academic content.

• They both have different ID formats, with DOIs starting with “10.” and Handles often staring with “hdl:”

Please see this FAQ link for more information on the comparison between DOIs and Handles.

Most likely, yes!  A data repository can assign a DOI to any research data set, publication, or document such as spreadsheets, images and figures, PowerPoint presentations, book chapters, research reports and whitepapers, code, video and media, etc.  If you have questions about your specific project outputs and DOI eligibility, please submit a help request to the RCDM team. 

Currently, the UGA Libraries does not register or assign DOIs or Handles for materials and datasets. Authors are responsible for obtaining DOIs for their own work as well as for stewardship, maintenance, and updates of the DOI. This includes maintaining the link between the DOI and the metadata page describing your published work, ownership changes, and any associated updates to deposited digital content.  

There are a number of Registration Agencies that offer DOI assignment and registration, metadata collection, and other specialized maintenance services. Alternatively, some open access repositories and research sharing sites (such as Figshare, ResearchGate, and Open Science Framework) may offer DOI assignment along with other data deposit services at low or no cost to authors.  Costs may vary depending on the repository or registration service you decide to utilize. 

If your preferred open repository does not offer DOI assignment services, the DOI Foundation recommends the US-based registration agencies listed below: 

• DataCite

• Crossref

• DOI Foundation Homepage

• DOI Foundation: Handbook

• CrossRef: DOI Maintenance Best Practices

Searching for a field-specific repository

• re3data.org 

This repository search tool allows researchers to browse by subject, content type, and country.

Agriculture

• USDA Economic Research Service Data Sets

Archaeology

• Digital Archaeological Record - tDAR

The Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR) is an international digital repository for the digital records of archaeological investigations.

• Open Context

Open Context reviews, edits, and publishes archaeological research data and archives data with university-backed repositories, including the California Digital Library.

Astronomy and Astrophysics

• HEASARC - The High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center

The High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC) is the primary archive for NASA's (and other space agencies) missions dealing with electromagnetic radiation from extremely energetic phenomena ranging from black holes to the Big Bang.

• Infrared Science Archive

IRSA is chartered to curate the calibrated science products from NASA's infrared and sub-millimeter missions. We offer access to digital archives through powerful query engines, including VO-compliant interfaces, and offer unique tools such as the IRAS scan processing tool Scanpi.

• National Space Science Data Center

NASA's permanent archive for space science mission data.

• NED -- The NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database

NED is a comprehensive database of multiwavelength data for extragalactic objects, providing a systematic, ongoing fusion of information integrated from hundreds of large sky surveys and tens of thousands of research publications. The contents and services span the entire observed spectrum from gamma rays through radio frequencies.

• NucAstroData

A resource for utilizing nuclear information in studies of astrophysical systems.

• Plasma gate

Plasma Laboratory - Weizmann Institute of Science

• SIMBAD astronomical database

The SIMBAD astronomical database provides basic data, cross-identifications, bibliography, and measurements for astronomical objects outside the solar system.

• SkyServer

SkyServer provides access to the entire public database of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey - over 80 million stars, galaxies, and quasars. The site includes a variety of Tools to view and download SDSS data, and Projects that let you use these data to learn science.

• Sloan Digital Sky Survey

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has obtained deep, multi-color images covering more than a quarter of the sky and created 3-dimensional maps containing more than 930,000 galaxies and more than 120,000 quasars.

• Smithsonian/NASA astrophysics data system

The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is a Digital Library portal for researchers in Astronomy and Physics, operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) under a NASA grant. The ADS maintains three bibliographic databases containing more than 10.2 million records: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Physics, and arXiv e-prints.

• UK solar system data centre

The UK Solar System Data Centre (UKSSDC) provides a STFC and NERC jointly funded central archive and data centre facility for Solar System science in the UK.

• US Virtual Astronomical Observatory

The Virtual Astronomical Observatory (VAO) is part of a worldwide effort called the Virtual Observatory (VO) that aims to link astronomy data and services.

Atmospheric Science

• National Center for Atmospheric Research

The CISL Research Data Archive (RDA) contains a large and diverse collection of meteorological and oceanographic observations, operational and reanalysis model outputs, and remote sensing datasets to support atmospheric and geosciences research, along with ancillary datasets, such as topography/bathymetry, vegetation, and land use.

• National Climatic Data Center (NCDC)

NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) is responsible for preserving, monitoring, assessing, and providing public access to the Nation's treasure of climate and historical weather data and information.

Biology and Life Sciences

• The Cell: An Image Library

We are accumulating images of all cell types from all organisms, including intracellular structures and movies or animations demonstrating functions.

• DigiMorph

The Digital Morphology library is a dynamic archive of information on digital morphology and high-resolution X-ray computed tomography of biological specimens.

• ITIS - Integrated Taxinomic Information System
  
  Authoritative taxonomic information on plants, animals, fungi, and microbes of North America and the world.

• NCBI taxonomy
  
  The Taxonomy Database is a curated classification and nomenclature for all of the organisms in the public sequence databases. This currently represents about 10% of the described species of life on the planet.

• PLEXdb - Plant Expression Database
  
  PLEXdb (Plant Expression Database) is a unified gene expression resource for plants and plant pathogens. PLEXdb is a genotype to phenotype, hypothesis building information warehouse, leveraging highly parallel expression data with seamless portals to related genetic, physical, and pathway data.

• Protein DataBank
  
  Biological Macromolecular Resource.

• Species 2000
  
  Species 2000 is a federation of database organisations working closely with users, taxonomists and sponsoring agencies.

• UniProt
  
  The mission of UniProt is to provide the scientific community with a comprehensive, high-quality and freely accessible resource of protein sequence and functional information.

Chemistry

• Cambridge Structural Database
  
  Established in 1965, the CSD is the world’s repository for small-molecule organic and metal-organic crystal structures. Containing the results of over half-a-million x-ray and neutron diffraction analyses this unique database of accurate 3D structures has become an essential resource to scientists around the world.

• eCrystals
  
  eCrystals - Southampton is the archive for Crystal Structures generated by the Southampton Chemical Crystallography Group and the EPSRC UK National Crystallography Service.

• PubChem
  
  PubChem, released in 2004, provides information on the biological activities of small molecules.

Computer Science and Source Code

• Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA)
  
  Collection and sharing of data for scientific analysis of Internet traffic, topology, routing, performance, and security-related events is one of CAIDA's core objectives.

• Google Code Project hosting
  
  Project Hosting on Google Code provides a free collaborative development environment for open source projects.

• Launchpad
  
  A software collaboration platform.

• SourceForge
  
  Find, Create, and Publish Open Source software for free.

Geosciences

• GEON
  
  An open collaborative project that is developing cyberinfrastructure for integration of 3 and 4 dimensional earth science data.

• GEOROC
  
  Geochemistry of rocks of the oceans and continents.

• Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center

• Marine Geoscience Data System (MGDS)

• Pangaea
  
  Publishing network for geoscientific and environmental data.

• PetDB
  
  PetDB is a global synthesis of chemical, isotopic, and mineralogical data for rocks, minerals, and melt inclusions.

• USGS National Satellite Land Remote Sensing Data Archive

• ICSU World Data System

GIS

• GEO.DATA.GOV
  
  Data catalog.

• Geocommons.com
  
  GeoCommons enables everyone to find, use and share geographic data and maps. Easily create rich interactive visualizations to solve problems without any experience using traditional mapping tools.

• Federal Geographic Data Committee
  
  The FGDC coordinates the sharing of geographic data, maps, and online services through an online portal, GeoPlatform.gov, that searches metadata held within the NSDI Clearinghouse Network.

• National Geospatial Program
  
  The National Geospatial Program provides leadership for USGS geospatial coordination, production and service activities. The Program engages partners to develop standards and produce consistent and accurate data through its Geospatial Liaison Network.

Health and Medical Science

• Biological Magnetic Resonance DataBank

• HEAL (Health Education Assets Library)

• National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)

• Neuroscience Information Framework

Oceanography

• ​​​​National Oceanographic Data Center

Physics

• HEP Data

• NIST Physical Standards Laboratory

• National Nuclear Data Center

Social Sciences

• Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
  
  ICPSR maintains a data archive of more than 500,000 files of research in the social sciences, with significant coverage of education.

Weather and Climate

• Climate Data Library

• National Center for Atmospheric Research
  
  The CISL Research Data Archive (RDA) contains a large and diverse collection of meteorological and oceanographic observations, operational      and reanalysis model outputs, and remote sensing datasets to support atmospheric and geosciences research, along with ancillary datasets, such as topography/bathymetry, vegetation, and land use.

• National Climatic Data Center (NCDC)
  
  NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) is responsible for preserving, monitoring, assessing, and providing public access to the Nation's treasure of climate and historical weather data and information.

• National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)

• UGA Open Scholar
  UGA Open Scholar is the institutional and research data repository for the University of Georgia. The platform is the digital archive for public-facing scholarly outputs generated by UGA faculty, staff, and students. It is designed to ensure long-term preservation, accessibility, and dissemination of the university’s academic content to support research, teaching, and public engagement. The system offers support for PIDs, including ORCID and DOI handles.

• GALILEO Knowledge Repository (State of Georgia)
  USG's collection of institutional repositories, which links users to UGA Open Scholar.

• Generalist repositories

A PDF document created by the Research Data Alliance where you can find a comparison of different repositories (e.g., OSF, Dryad, Zenodo) and their capabilities, including persistent identifier (PID) options.

• SPARC - browse article and data sharing requirements by federal agency

• National Science and Technology Council - Memo desirable characteristics of data repositories for federally funded research