

DataSearch lists datasets from repositories, together with figures, tables and other data from published articles.Unlike repositories, indexes do not contain actual datasets but list their metadata, such as title, data, and creator. Search indexes of datasetsĪnother quick way to look for data is to search indexes of datasets. You can also find disciplinary repositories with open data in this list of data repositories. You should always search for repositories within your discipline. Multidisciplinary repositories contain datasets from various fields, and disciplinary repositories contain datasets from specific fields.Īlthough Re3data covers many data repositories, it does not cover them all. This directory lists both multidisciplinary repositories and disciplinary repositories. The easiest way to look for repositories is to use the directory Re3data. Search repositoriesĭata repositories contain datasets created and published by researchers or by organisations. If not, you could contact the author and request access to the data. If you find an article that is closely related to your research topic, see if it includes a reference to a dataset, or if it contains supplementary data files. Many articles you read are likely based on data. You might then want to ask people in your network if they have datasets you could use. Publishing datasets is not yet as common as publishing articles, and many researchers still keep their datasets to themselves. You might want to use existing data for your research to do a meta-analysis, to re-evaluate findings, to perform new analyses on existing data, or to validate a model.
