Discovering and reusing research data

The French research data repository 'Recherche Data Gouv' gives access to data produced by research teams from research centers based in France. It contains research data that are made available with direct access and structured into datasets, plus metadata, all eventually curated. Here are some tips for finding research data:

• The research data the most recently deposited are shown on the main page of the repository.
• Search can be made covering all collections or a specific collection (Dataverse). The results can be filtered per collection (Dataverse), per datasets or per files.
• Advanced search covers various metadata fields, such as the data identifiers (e.g. DOI).
• Datasets comprises one of several files available to all. File previews and downloads are possible into the data repository. File previews and downloads are possible into the data repository. A readme file gives details on the contents available in order to facilitate the reuse of the data by users. Data producers are identified, signaled and reachable.
• When research data are linked to a scientific publication, its citation is added into the dataset metadata (‘Related publication’ field).
• Research projects funding the data production are also mentioned.
• In case a DMP (Data Management Plan) has been created, a link to the document is made (‘Related Dataset’ field) or the document in itself can be deposited among the dataset files.
• Terms of reuse are clearly indicated through the open licence of the datasets.
• The dataset citation can be exported in various formats, as well as the citation of a file. The aim is to facilitate bibliographical references and to guarantee access to the research data that will be used in a next research work. 

You can go further having a look on the tutorials produced by the support team:

• Tutorial : exploring data
• Tutorial : searching for data
• Tutorial : browsing through collections