Manage Your Research Data: Open Data
This guide provides a primer on the fundamentals of data management.
Open Data
Open Data is an alternative to large data archives, which charges for access and storage. Open Data is the fundamental belief that free access to data allows great collaboration, transparency, and accountability, while also enabling and encouraging future research. In addition to propriety data repositories, research data can also be deposited in open, freely-accessible repositories (including PDXScholar). This increases access to, and subsequent use of, research data.
Open Data Resources
- openICPSRA place to share social and behavioral science research data. Data is accessible to users at no cost, but store is limited to 2GB
- Simmons University Open Data Repository ListOrganized by discipline.
- GitHubOwned by Microsoft and primarily used to share code, GitHub also allows researchers to share some forms of data (notably geospatial and modelling data).
- PDXScholarInstitutional repository for the research products of students, faculty and staff of Portland State University, including theses, dissertations, scholarly communication and open access datasets. If you wish to add your work to PDXScholar, contact pdxscholar@pdx.edu for assistance.
Search for a Data Repository
- Registry of Research Data RepositoriesSearchable catalog of all research data repositories. (Previously "Databib")
- Directory of Open Access RepositoriesOpenDOAR is an authoritative directory of academic open access repositories; each repository has been visited and reviewed for quality.
Further Readings
- Democratizing Our Data byCall Number: PSU Library Shelves - Basement HA37.U55 L34 2020ISBN: 9780262044325Publication Date: 2020-09-01" wake-up call for America to create a new framework for democratizing data. Public data are foundational to our democratic system. People need consistently high-quality information from trustworthy sources. In the new economy, wealth is generated by access to data; government’s job is to democratize the data playing field. Yet data produced by the American government are getting worse and costing more. In Democratizing Our Data, Julia Lane argues that good data are essential for democracy. Her book is a wake-up call to America to fix its broken public data system. Lane argues that we must rethink ways to democratize data; there are successful models to follow and new legislation that can help effect change. The private sector’s data revolution—which creates new types of data and new measurements to build machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms—can be mirrored by a public sector data revolution characterized by attention to counting all who should be counted, measuring what should be measured, and protecting privacy and confidentiality. Just as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook have led the world in the use of data for profit, the United States can show the world how to produce data for the public good. Lane calls for a more automated, transparent, and accountable framework for creating high-quality public data that would empower citizens and inspire the workforce that serves them. And she outlines an organizational model that has the potential to make data more accessible and useful. As she says, failure to act threatens our democracy."
- (E-Book) Open Data and the Knowledge Society byCall Number: E-BookISBN: 9789462980181Publication Date: 2017-03-07"While there is a lot of talk about how we now live in a knowledge society, the reality has been less impressive: We have yet to truly transition to a knowledge society-in part, this book argues, because discussion mostly focuses on a knowledge economy and information society rather than on ways to mobilise to create an actual knowledge society. That all may change, however, with the rise of open data and big data. This book considers the role of the open data movement in fostering transformation, showing that at the heart of any successful mobilisation will be an emerging open data ecosystem and new ways for societal actors to effectively produce and use data."
- (E-Book) Open Data Structures: an Introduction byCall Number: E-BookISBN: 1299794645Publication Date: 2013-01-01"Offered as an introduction to the field of data structures and algorithms, Open Data Structures covers the implementation and analysis of data structures for sequences (lists), queues, priority queues, unordered dictionaries, ordered dictionaries, and graphs. Analyzed and implemented in Java, with a mathematically rigorous approach, Morin clearly and briskly presents instruction along with source code. A modern treatment of an essential computer science topic, this text is a measured balance between classical topics and state-of-the-art structures that will serve the needs of all undergraduate."
- (E-Book) The Social Dynamics of Open Data byCall Number: E-BookISBN: 1928331564Publication Date: 2017"The Social Dynamics of Open Data is a collection of peer reviewed papers presented at the 2nd Open Data Research Symposium (ODRS) held in Madrid, Spain, on 5 October 2016. Research is critical to developing a more rigorous and fine-combed analysis not only of why open data is valuable, but how it is valuable and under what specific conditions. The objective of the Open Data Research Symposium and the subsequent collection of chapters published here is to build such a stronger evidence base. This base is essential to understanding what open data's impacts have been to date, and how positive impacts can be enabled and amplified. Consequently, common to the majority of chapters in this collection is the attempt by the authors to draw on existing scientific theories, and to apply them to open data to better explain the socially embedded dynamics that account for open data's successes and failures in contributing to a more equitable and just society."
- (E-Book) The State of Open Data Histories and Horizons byCall Number: E-BookISBN: 1928331955Publication Date: 2019"
It's been ten years since open data first broke onto the global stage. Over the past decade, thousands of programmes and projects around the world have worked to open data and use it to address a myriad of social and economic challenges. Meanwhile, issues related to data rights and privacy have moved to the centre of public and political discourse. As the open data movement enters a new phase in its evolution, shifting to target real-world problems and embed open data thinking into other existing or emerging communities of practice, big questions still remain. How will open data initiatives respond to new concerns about privacy, inclusion, and artificial intelligence? And what can we learn from the last decade in order to deliver impact where it is most needed?" - (E-Book) The Data Revolution byCall Number: E-BookISBN: 9781446287477Publication Date: 2014-08-26"
A seminal text, written by one of the world′s leading experts in the field. In contrast to the hype and hubris of much media and business coverage, this book provides a synoptic and truly critical analysis of ′big data′, ′open data′ and the emerging data landscape."