Publishing research data
When you share your knowledge, everyone benefits – that is why we help all scientists at ETH Zurich publish their research data.
Why should I publish?
external page Publications are cited more often when the data are public. Moreover, this makes the results of these publications more credible. High-quality research data can also be published in specialised journals such as “external page Scientific Data”. This and other journals publish detailed descriptions of datasets, mostly peer-reviewed. This allows your research data to be used for other projects, while your results remain reproducible. ETH Zurich requires in the Guidelines for Research Data Management at ETH Zurich (RDM Guidelines, RSETH 414.2) that data relevant for published research output must be made publicly available in a FAIR repository. Furthermore, some funders require you to publish your research data.
Where should I publish?
You can publish your research data in the Research Collection. Your data will be automatically linked with a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which makes them permanently citable. If necessary, you can also simply store your data in the Research Collection for archival purposes without providing anyone access to the data. The Research Collection meets the SNSF criteria for data repositories.
Depending on the file format, there may also be subject-specific data repositories that offer specialised support. You can find an overview in external page the SNSF list, on external page PLOS|ONE or external page re3data.
How should I prepare my data for publishing?
The ETH Library provides a practical Step-by-Step Guide on Data Publication for ETH Zurich Researchers that supports you with documenting your metadata and datasets and with preparing them for publication in a FAIR data repository. Following this guide will help you take into account good practise principles as well as funder requirements and guidelines that apply at ETH Zurich. The guide also indicates where to find relevant information and support at ETH Zurich. For more general information on what to do for publication and archiving of research data, please consider our documentation.
You determine all of the key parameters when you submit your data, for example access rights or end user licences. The ETH Library will formally and technically review your data and, if it meets the requirements, will publish it. The most important advantages for you as a researcher:
- All file formats are permitted
- Flexible access permissions from open access to access upon request for data publications up to 50 GB
- Open-access publication of datasets larger than 50 GB
- Citable DOI, DOI reservation possible
- Download statistics and altmetrics data updated daily
- Content preview for ZIP and tar archives
- Link to Grant ID, export to the EU portal OpenAIRE
- Long-term data availability: Archiving of all data publications up to 50 GB in the ETH data archive
