Data repositories
Waithira N., Hadjuk G.
Have you wondered what happens to data when a research study is completed? Supposing you are a researcher who wants to share a copy of the data you have been recently working on with me, how would you do it? Would you give me a USB drive with the data on it, send it to me through email, or perhaps upload the files to Dropbox? If I requested to see data you worked on 6 months ago, a year ago, or even 5 years ago, would you be able to find it easily and share it with me? Where might these data be stored - on an old laptop, a hard drive, or in your email archives? There are two important aspects here: how to store data and how to transfer the data to someone else. We can see the ideal system emerging slowly: we need to focus on long-term data preservation. Data preservation involves safeguarding digital data against corruption, loss, or damage. It ensures future accessibility and usability of the data despite changes in technology and in data formats. In this module, we discuss how data repositories solve problems with data storage and access.