The process for depositing data, code, and metadata into the Johns Hopkins Research Data Repository is a collaboration between the researcher and the Data Services curator. This policy is written to help Johns Hopkins researchers understand the procedures and requirements for deposit. This policy does not cover procedures and policies around using published data, code and metadata that can be accessed from the Repository.
The Johns Hopkins Research Data Repository is an open access repository for the long-term management and preservation of research data. Through depositing datasets in the Johns Hopkins Research Data Repository (JHRDR), researchers are able to share their research data with the public for future discovery and reuse. The Johns Hopkins Research Data Repository is administered by professional curators who will work with you to ensure your data is Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR).
JHRDR is built on The Dataverse Project, a platform developed and maintained by the Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science and used by data repositories around the world. The platform has been recognized by the NIH and other funders as a reputable repository in which to share research data to comply with funding requirements.
JHRDR welcomes deposits from current Johns Hopkins faculty, students, and research staff. Submissions from multi-institutional collaborations are acceptable, provided that they include at least one participant who is actively employed by Johns Hopkins.
To deposit to JHRDR, project leads must sign a Deposit Agreement that outlines the responsibilities of the depositor, repository, and curators. Researchers must work with Data Services to mediate the deposit of their data. At this time, researchers are not allowed to self-deposit.
Researchers who are preparing a Data Management & Sharing Plan for a grant application are welcome to write JHRDR into their Plan provided the materials meet the requirements below. Please note that JHU Data Services provides DMSP review services via the DMPTool and requires any plan listing JHRDR to be submitted for review. Listing JHRDR in a DMSP without requesting a review from JHU Data Services may result in the repository administrators not being able to execute the deposit appropriately when the time comes, which would require the researcher to use an alternative repository.
The Repository accepts data and code that are free from ethical and legal constraints from any research discipline. The Repository accepts data associated with a publication as well as datasets that are archived and shared as individual data publications.
Data and code supporting a publication or research project. Materials and documentation that can reproduce research results.
We recommend depositing the materials supporting any findings, summary tables, and visualizations in your publication or research project. These materials can include raw or processed data files used for analysis; code used to process or analyze your data; simulations; survey responses; interview transcripts; researcher observations; geospatial vector files; information computationally derived from public sources, and more. In short, ideally all the files and scripts that would help a researcher reuse your data or reproduce the findings of your publication.
We reserve the right to reject deposits at our discretion should they not meet our collection scope or submission guidelines (improper consent, conflicts with IRB protocol, unclear copyright, data transfer restrictions, missing or inadequate end-user documentation, etc.) If your data are out of scope for JHRDR, we are happy to help you identify an appropriate repository.
While Data Services makes a good faith effort to determine that all deposited data are eligible to be in an open access repository, JH researchers are ultimately responsible for meeting this criteria.
The Repository is open access, which means all the metadata and data deposited into the Repository can be found and downloaded without any restrictions. There is no user registration for data downloads or data access committee monitoring data requests. Because it is not a controlled-access repository, which is a type of repository where researchers verify their identity before they are allowed to download and analyze data, we require human participant data to meet HIPAA “statistical determination” standards for anonymization, and that participants have consented to sharing data openly per JHU IRB policy All depositors will be asked to provide their consent forms to the curators prior to acceptance of the deposit. Data that was used for research under a waiver of consent is not allowed. While JHRDR curators will perform a cursory review for PII, it is the sole responsibility of the PI to anonymize the data.
All datasets will have a license that allows for broad reuse of the data. Depositors can choose their dataset’s license when completing the Deposit Form. The Archive typically uses the following licenses: CC0 1.0 Universal (Public Domain Dedication), Attribution 4.0 International (CC-BY), or Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC-BY-NC) for data files, and the MIT license for code and software. As stated earlier, all data must be free from any legal or ethical constraints, which would inhibit a license for broad reuse of the data.
During the deposit process, the data files, metadata, and DOI will remain unpublished until the Depositor gives the approval to publish. The Consultant will provide a private link to allow the Depositor, co-authors, and reviewers to see the Dataset and request edits. Upon publication, the metadata and data files will become publicly available, and the DOI will resolve to the correct webpage.
In the situation where a Depositor initiates a data deposit, but does not grant us permission to make it public, we will make a best effort to contact them and determine when the dataset can be made public. If the Depositors responds to us, we will follow their requested timing for publishing. We reserve the right to either 1) publish metadata and the submitted version of the files or 2) delete unpublished datasets after 12 months of being unpublished if we have not heard from the Depositor after multiple attempts to contact them.