You can reuse data for your research from many sources across disciplines. Some funders now ask researchers to justify creating new data rather than reusing existing datasets.
How to find data
Datasets are often deposited in funder, institutional, discipline-specific or generalist data repositories. You can search and filter directories of repositories re3data.org and DataCite to find datasets. See also Choosing a data repository for an explanation of available repositories.
Some repositories, including Apollo, offer 'recommended or similar items' functionality alongside your search results. This can help you find other datasets of interest.
Search engines index datasets deposited in repositories and include them in search results. Google and Google Scholar are examples.
Many academic library catalogues index institutional repository datasets. iDiscover at the University of Cambridge is one example.
Literature searching: many citation databases such as Web of Science or Scopus index datasets.
How to reuse data
It is important to check the license given by the original depositor. This tells you what you can do with the data and if there are any restrictions.
Citing data
It is important that you cite any data sources you reuse and not only the associated publication. This credits the original creators of the work. It helps discovery, transparency and trust within research.
Citing data helps others understand how you came to the conclusions you make in your work. It acknowledges the contribution of other datasets made to reaching your conclusions. It improves the reproducibility of research.
How to cite datasets
Dataset citation is similar to publication citation. Journals have different referencing style requirements. A citation may include:
- Author(s)
- Publication date
- Title
- Place of publication (e.g. Apollo – University of Cambridge Repository)
- DOI
- Version number (if appropriate)
Many repositories provide a citation on dataset records that you can use with various referencing styles.
The University of Cambridge subscribes to Cite Them Right. This resource offers advice on how to cite datasets.
Dataset usage
Many repositories, including Apollo, include usage and citation statistics for datasets. These show how many times a dataset has been cited, viewed or downloaded. Many repositories also provide altmetric (alternative metric) statistics. These show the attention that a dataset has received for example in social media. Data like this helps researchers to understand who is using a dataset and in which context.