Research Guides: Research Data Management: Preservation

Preservation

Depositing data

The best way to preserve your data, and something that is now required by a lot of funding agencies, is to deposit your data into a repository. Some funders, like the NIH, operate discipline-specific repositories, and some publishers require that data is publicly available prior to acceptance and publication. You can find information and a list of repositories here: https://guides.temple.edu/data-stats/datarepositories

We are excited to announce the launch of our new institutional repository, TUScholarShare. TUScholarShare is a service to support the needs of the Temple University community around sharing, promoting, and archiving the wide range of scholarly works created in the course of research and teaching, including research data. To learn more or to deposit your work, visit: https://library.temple.edu/categories/tuscholarshare. You can find the data deposit link here.

If you have specific questions about TUScholarShare, please contact scholarshare@temple.edu, and if you have questions about depositing your data please contact tul-rds@temple.edu.

Best practices for files

When selecting file formats for archiving, the formats should ideally be:

Non-proprietary: .docx, .xlsx, and other file formats used by Microsoft Word are proprietary and non-preferred for this reason
Unencrypted
Uncompressed
In common usage by the research community
Adherent to an open, documented standard, such as described by the State of California (see AB 1668, 2007)
- Interoperable among diverse platforms and applications
- Fully published and available royalty-free
- Fully and independently implementable by multiple software providers on multiple platforms without any intellectual property restrictions for necessary technology
- Developed and maintained by an open standards organization with a well-defined inclusive process for evolution of the standard.

Converting files to new formats

Note conversion steps taken
If possible, keep the original file as well as the converted one

When stating what format you'll be using:

Note what software is needed to view the file
Provide information about version control
Explain any anticipated format changes - such as using one file type for collection and another for analysis.

Preferred file formats

Compressed: