Using the IR as a Research Data Registry

Abstract

As data and software become increasingly common research outputs, universities have an opportunity to expand their existing efforts to record affiliated publications so that they also capture information about research data releases. At KAUST we have taken several steps to put our repository on a path towards becoming a reliable registry for information about the existence and location of research data released by affiliated researchers. These included developing a process to retrospectively retrieve and register information about datasets with machine-readable relationships to publications already in the repository, and updates to our active publications tracking procedures so that data availability statements are retrieved at the time of harvesting and checked for references to research data. The presentation will conclude by discussing how these efforts help put the repository in a position to provide expanded services in support of improved research data management, including access to and preservation of research data not explicitly linked to a formal publication.