Dash: The Data Publication Tool for Researchers

This post has been crossposted on Medium

We all know that research data should be archived and shared. That’s why Dash was created, a Data Publishing platform free to UC researchers. Dash complies with journal and funder requirements, follows best practices, and is easy to use. In addition, new features are continuously being developed to better integrate with your research workflow.

Why is Dash the best solution for UC researchers:

• Data are archived indefinitely. You can use Dash to ensure all of your research data will be available even after you get a new computer or switch institutions. Beyond that, your data will have all the important associated documentation on the funding sources for the research, the research methods and equipment used, and readme files on how your data was processed so future researchers from your own lab or globally can utilize your work.
• Data can be published at any time. While we do have features that assist with affiliated article publication like keeping your data private during the review process, Data Publications do not need to be associated with an article. Publish out your data at any point in time.
• Data can be versioned. As you update and optimize protocols, or do further analysis on your data, you may update your data files or documentation. Your DOI will always resolve to a landing page listing all versions of the dataset.
• Data can be uploaded to Dash directly from your computer or through a “manifest”. “Manifest” means you may enter up to 1000 URLs where your data are living on servers, box, dropbox, or google drive and the data will be transferred to Dash without waiting several hours or dealing with timeouts.
• You can upload up to 100gb of data per submission.
• Dash does not limit file type. So long as the data are within the size limits listed above, publications can be image data, tabular data, qualitative data, etc…
• Related works can be linked. Code, articles, other datasets, and protocols can be linked to your data for a more comprehensive package of your research.
• Data deposited to Dash receive a DOI. This means that not only can your data be located but you can cite your data as you would articles. The landing page for each dataset includes an author list for your citation as well, so each author who contributed to the data collection and analysis may receive credit for their work.
• Data are assigned an open license. Data deposited are publicly available for re-use to anyone using a Creative Commons license. You put many hours and coffees into producing these data, public release will give your research a broader reach. A light reminder that your name are still associated with data and making your data public does not mean you are “giving away” your work.
• Dash is a UC project. Dash can be customized per campus. Many campus libraries are subsidizing the cost of storage, and it is developed by University of California Curation Center (UC3) meaning this service is set-up to serve your needs.

We hear a lot about the cost of storage being an inhibitor. But, on many campuses, the storage costs associated with Dash are subsidized by academic libraries or departments. The cost of storage could also be written into grants (as funders do require data to be archived).

We are always looking for feedback on what features would be the most useful, so that we can make data publishing a part of your normal workflows. Get in touch with us or start using Dash to archive and share your data.