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Engage in open science and open scholarship

Need assistance with open science or open scholarship?

Duke is committed to a culture of open science and open scholarship to ensure transparency and accountability in research. This commitment involves making scientific processes, data, analyses, and publications as accessible as possible. This page contains information on best practices, and resources for sharing research data, publications, and other outputs.

 

Data Sharing

Requirements and limitations on data sharing

For sponsored research, there may be specific data sharing requirements associated with the award. The Notice of Award (NOA) - located in the “my Portfolio” widget on myRESEARCHhome - should be referred to for specific requirements.

Guidance is available for data sharing requirements for research funded by federal agencies on the SPARC website, and Duke ScholarWorks has developed guidance about federal agency access requirements. Journals may also have data sharing requirements, such as requiring data that supports the results of the paper to be available via a public repository. This is often found in the instructions for the author and should be considered prior to submitting a manuscript.

Limitations to data sharing may also be in place due to funder restrictions or intellectual property protections. Refer to any research agreements or contracts in place for the project to determine allowable data sharing activities.

For assistance with data sharing requirements or limitations, talk to the appropriate grants or contracts specialist:

Data cleaning and curation

Data cleaning prior to depositing data into a repository ensures that the dataset is complete, accurate, and free from errors. The Duke Data Management Plan guidance document contains best practices and considerations for preparing data to share or archive. This includes appropriately de-identifying research data involving human subjects or participants before it can be deposited into a repository.

Some repositories may provide curation services, and the Duke Libraries is also available to assist with data curation to help researchers meet the FAIR Guiding Principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) in preparation for data sharing.

 

Duke-supported options available for data sharing

The following data sharing options are institutionally supported. For information on other repositories or to talk to an expert about selecting the appropriate option for a research project, contact the Duke University Libraries or Medical Center Library.

Software and Code Sharing

Similar to data sharing, Duke encourages an environment of open sharing of software and code that are created as research outputs. However, there may be requirements or limitations for sharing software and code based on funder requirements or other collaborative agreements. The NOA or the appropriate grants or contracts specialist should be consulted to ensure compliance with any code sharing requirements:

Duke provides an institutional license to GitLab, which is an open source code sharing repository. For assistance with utilizing GitLab or to explore alternative options for software and code sharing, contact Research Computing or the Center for Data and Visualization Sciences.

 

Publishing in open access journals

Open access (OA) is the practice of providing unrestricted access via the Internet to peer-reviewed scholarly research. It is most commonly applied to scholarly journal articles, but it is also increasingly being provided to theses, scholarly monographs and book chapters. Open access enables greater research impact and broader dissemination of findings by reducing barriers to access for other researchers, stakeholders, and members of the community.

Many researchers choose to publish their articles in open access journals or to publish their articles as open access within a traditional journal.

The libraries at Duke support programs that waive or discount article processing charges (APCs) with several publishers, including PLOS. See more information at both the Duke University Libraries and the Medical Center Library.

Open access policies

Several funders, including the NIH and NSF, require investigators to make research findings publicly available through specific repositories and programs.

In a commitment to open scholarship, the Duke University open access policy requires all scholarly articles authored by Duke faculty to be made freely available on the article repository site, DukeSpace. The Duke ScholarWorks website provides more information and resources regarding the open access policy.