Institution data requirements
Each institution has their own data policy and data services they have to provide to publish and/or archive data. This can create confusion as a researcher might have to follow, for the same dataset, a journal publishing requirements, their own institution policy, the funder policy, usually the Australian Research Council, and on top of that we, as CLEX, are also asking them to follow our own guidelines.Sometimes an institution might require you to do something which is not possible, as publishing model data on their repository when this does not have capacity for a large dataset.
The key to navigate all these policies and services is to remember that all these reccomendation and rules have a common aim. The ARC, your own university and CLEX want your data to be FAIR. They want you to:
- share and publish your data and code whenever possible;
- to do this ethically (see Research Code of Conduct);
- to use a repository, standards and conventions relevant to your discipline;
- and to archive for 5 years essential data underpinning your PhD thesis and journal publications.
Australian Research Council data policy
The ARC does not yet have an Open Access policy for data, their Open Access policy applies to research outputs with the exclusion of data and code.
However, the ARC has a Data Management Recommendations page, clearly stating that
Effective data management is an important part of ensuring open access to publicly funded research data. Data management planning from the beginning of a research project helps to outline how data will be collected, formatted, described, stored and shared throughout, and beyond, the project lifecycle.
In particular:
- From 2020, the ARC requires researchers to provide a Data Management Plan (DMP) as part of the agreement for funding under the National Competitive Grants Program.
- Detailed DMPs should be in place before the start of the project, while a not detailed version is sufficient when submitting a grant.
- The ARC requires researcher to follow the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research 2018, which also cover data sharing and proper data management.
