Resource Guides: Research Data Management Resources: Open and Publicly Available Data

What Is Open Data?

"Open data" is data that can be freely used, reused and redistributed by anyone - subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and sharealike (from the Open Data Handbook). The Open Data movement began with efforts to improve access to government data and has now expanded to research data and beyond. This page focuses on finding open health and scientific data. For more information on sharing and publishing data, visit our Sharing/Publishing Data page.

Data Repository Registries and Lists

NIH Data Sharing Repositories
Annotated listing of NIH-supported data repositories that make data accessible for reuse, including submission and access information.
FAIRsharing.org
A curated, informative and educational resource on data and metadata standards, inter-related to databases and data policies.
re3data.org
re3data.org maintains a curated registry of research data repositories. Use their Repository Finder tool to find the right repository for your data.

Generalist Data Repositories

Generalist Repository Comparison Chart
Compares seven generalist repositories that are part of the Generalist Repository Ecosystem Initiative (GREI): Harvard Dataverse, Dryad, Figshare, Mendeley Data, OSF, Vivli, and Zenodo.
Generalist Repository Selection Flowchart
Decision tree for selecting the right repository for your research data featuring the the generalist repositories listed in the generalist repository comparison chart.

Select generalist repositories:

Dryad
Dryad is an international repository of data underlying peer-reviewed scientific and medical literature, particularly data for which no specialized repository exists. All material in Dryad is associated with a scholarly publication. For information about depositing to Dryad, including general recommendations for data management and describing data, see http://datadryad.org/pages/depositing.
figshare
figshare is a commercial service that provides a repository for researchers to publish all of their research outputs in a citable, sharable and discoverable manner. figshare is supported by Digital Science, a Macmillan Publishers company.
Harvard Dataverse Repository
Free data repository open to all researchers from any discipline where you can share, archive, cite, access, and explore research data.
OSF
OSF is a free and open source project management repository that supports researchers across their entire project lifecycle.
Vivli
Global clinical research data sharing platform hosted by an independent, non-profit organization.
Zenodo
Repository run by the CERN data center which accepts all data types, mints DOIs, and keeps track of versions. Can also be used to archive GitHub repositories.

Data Repositories for Biological Science Data

For large datasets, here are selected data repositories for the biological sciences:

IGSR: The International Genome Sample Resource
Sequence and alignment data generated by the 1000genomes project and new data that has been generated from the samples and new samples collected with the same methods.
DANDI Achive
The DANDI Archive includes cellular neurophysiology data and is supported by the BRAIN Initiative.
dbGaP
Developed to archive and distribute the results of studies that have investigated the interaction of genotype and phenotype.
GenBank
GenBank is the NIH genetic sequence database, an annotated collection of all publicly available DNA sequences.
GEO (Gene Expression Omnibus)
An international public repository from NCBI that archives and freely distributes microarray, next-generation sequencing, and other forms of high-throughput functional genomics data submitted by the research community. Some submitted data is curated into GEO DataSets (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gds).
GigaDB
Repository for biological and biomedical research datasets. Originally hosted datasets only from GigaScience, an open access journal.
GISAID
GISAID is an international database designed for the rapid sharing of information on all influenza and coronavirus data, including genetic sequencing. Data download is open to all but data deposit is restricted to participating labs.
Mouse Genome Informatics
International database resource from The Jackson Laboratory for the laboratory mouse, providing integrated genetic, genomic, and biological data. The projects contributing to this resource are: Mouse Genome Database (MGD) Project, Gene Expression Database (GXD) Project, Mouse Tumor Biology (MTB) Database Project, Gene Ontology (GO) Project at MGI, and MouseCyc Project at MGI.
NITRIC Image Repository
Neuroimaging Informatics Tools and Resources Clearinghouse (NITRC) repository of MRI scans.
Protein Data Bank
A worldwide repository of information about the 3D structures of large biological molecules, including proteins and nucleic acids.

PubChem This link opens in a new window
Collection of freely accessible chemical information. Search chemicals by name, molecular formula, structure, and other identifiers. Find chemical and physical properties, biological activities, safety and toxicity information, patents, and citations. Accepts data for the PubChem Substance and PubChem BioAssay databases.

Open Data in eScholarship@UMassChan

eScholarship@UMassChan can serve as a home for research data files that support scholarly publications, including dissertations, theses, and journal articles that must meet requirements for the preservation and dissemination of data.

Instructions for depositing data in eScholarship@UMassChan

Benefits of sharing your data through eScholarship@UMassChan:

it is free to you
it can accommodate large file sizes and a variety of file formats
it can apply embargoes for access controls
it can provide a persistent identifier, such as a DOI
it can provide a Creative Commons license
it supplies usage metrics to help measure research impact
it includes sufficient metadata to enable discovery and reuse
it is a redundant copy of your data in the event that something should happen to your original
it is managed by the library

View this example of a data set housed in eScholarship@UMassChan

Publicly Available Health and Social Science Data

International Data

The World Health Organization Global Health Observatory (GHO)
WHO's gateway to health-related data from around the world including important public health issues such as mortality, diseases, health systems, violence and injuries, and equity.

ICPSR This link opens in a new window
The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research is a long-standing archive of over 500,000 social science data sets. Topic classifications include Healthcare and Facilities. It also hosts a number of health data collections including the National Archive of Computerized Data on Aging (NACDA). UMass Chan is a member institution.
Any questions, please contact the UMass Chan Official Representative: Sally Gore, sally.gore@umassmed.edu, or the Designated Representative, Tess Grynoch, tess.grynoch@umassmed.edu.

OECD Statistics Portal
Statistics from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Project Tycho
A database of publicly available US and international data on public health, including the entire history of weekly National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System reports for the United States (1888-2014).
Qualitative Data Repository
Housed at Syracuse University, QDR selects, ingests, curates, archives, manages, durably preserves, and provides access to digital data used in qualitative and multi-method social inquiry.
UNdata
Brings together international statistical databases. Maintained by Statistics Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) of the UN Secretariat.

United States Data

America's Health Rankings
Reports and ratings of health by state or by measure, from 1990 to 2010.
US Census Data
American Hospital Directory
Statistics for non-federal, short-term, acute care hospitals summarized by state.
Best Hospitals (U.S. News and World Report)
Hospital rankings both by specialty and area. From news source.
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (CDC)
The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) is the world's largest, on-going telephone health survey system.
CMS Data Navigator
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) claims and cost data.
County Health Rankings & Roadmaps
Health rankings by state and county from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Strategies, guidance and tools to impact health.
Data.gov
Home of the U.S. Government's open data. You can find federal, state and local data, tools, and resources to conduct research, build apps, design data visualizations, and more. Includes health, science, and public safety data.
Disability Statistics (Cornell University)
Online resource for U.S. Disability Statistics from Cornell University.
Food Environment Atlas (USDA)
County-level data on food choices, health and well-being, and community characteristics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
H-CUPnet (AHRQ)
Data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP). It provides access to health statistics and information on hospital inpatient and emergency department utilization.
Healthdata.gov
Managed by the Department of Health and Human Services, this site makes HHS data easily accessible to the public and to health innovators, including data on clinical care provider quality, health service provider directories, consumer product data, and community health performance information.
National Center for Health Statistics
Part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, NCHS is the principal health statistics agency for the United States. Their website includes data sets on a wide range of issues related to public health, from birth control to whooping cough.
National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP) AtlasPlus
Quick access to nearly 20 years of CDC’s surveillance data on HIV, viral hepatitis, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and tuberculosis (TB). Users can also view social and economic data in conjunction with HIV, viral hepatitis, STDs, and TB infections.
National Center for Education Statistics (U.S. Department of Education)
NCES is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education in the U.S. and other nations.
National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) (National Science Foundation)
A large body of statistical data resources for science and engineering (S&E) at U.S. academic institutions. NCSES emphasizes S&E, but its data resources also provide information on non-S&E fields and higher education in general. Previously WebCASPAR.
Neighborhood Atlas
The Area Deprivation Index (ADI) is based on a measure created by the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) for primarily county-level use, but refined, adapted, and validated to the Census block group/neighborhood by a research team at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
State Health Facts (KFF)
State-by-state data. Search specific health facts, choose a health category, or select a location. Provided by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Massachusetts Data

Massachusetts State Data Center (UMass Amherst)
A program of the UMass Donahue Institute's Economic and Public Policy Research Unit. Part of the Census Bureau’s State Data Center Program, provides an extensive collection of census data in Massachusetts, New England, and the U.S.
Massachusetts Office of Population Health
Facilitates and coordinates the collection, access to, and use of public health data in order to monitor and improve population health.

Other Sources for Data

DataCite Commons
Search all datasets with a DOI minted by DataCite using keywords or DOI.
Google Dataset Search
Familiar search engine which provides a list of links to available data on the web.
Pew Research Center
A "nonpartisan fact tank," Pew conducts public poll, media analysis, and demographic research on many topics of interest, including health and health care.
PubMed Central
Search this full text article database of NIH-funded research for associated data by using the "Associated Data" filter.
UN Data
Factual, authoritative, and official international data from the United Nations.

Data Journals

Data journals are publications whose purpose is to expose and share research data, and to promote its re-use. Examples of data journals:

BMC Research Notes (BioMed Central)
An open access, peer-reviewed journal that publishes short publications, cases, updates, software, databases, and data sets in the fields of biology and medicine.
GigaScience (Oxford University Press)
Publishes 'big-data' studies from the entire spectrum of life and biomedical sciences.
Journal of Open Psychology Data (Ubiquity Press)
Makes psychology research data available for replication studies and additional studies.
Scientific Data (Nature Publishing Group)
Publication launched in May 2014 for descriptions of scientifically valuable datasets.
More ejournals on data mining and datasets in BrowZine

Open Data Resources

Creative Commons and Data
Open data is facilitated by sharing under public terms to manage copyright restrictions that might otherwise limit dissemination or reuse of data, e.g. CC licenses or the CC0 public domain dedication. This page includes frequently asked questions.
Open Data - from SPARC
Open data resources from SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition.
Open Data Factsheet - from SPARC
One-page handout explaining the requirements for open data.
Open Data Handbook
This handbook from the Open Knowledge Foundation is an introduction to the legal, social and technical aspects of open data, with a focus on government data.

Research Data Management Resources

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