Research data generated and collected during a project can often be useful beyond its original purpose. It is therefore worthwhile making the data obtained publicly accessible. For this purpose it is important to ensure that your data is assigned persistent identifiers, good metadata is generated and sufficient documentation is provided to enable the data to be reused.
There are currently three ways of publishing research data.
Publication in a repository
Research data can be published in a disciplinary or a general repository. If possible, it is preferable to publish data in a disciplinary repository rather than in a generic one. Further information about selecting a suitable repository can be found in Finding a repository.
Publication in a data journal
Data papers published in data journals are documents that facilitate the dissemination and reuse of published data. These publications contain all information about data collection, methods, licenses and access rights along with information about potential reuse opportunities. The data itself is usually deposited in a repository.
The website of the Humboldt University of Berlin has a list of data journals.
Publication as a supplement to an article
Data can also be published as additional information for an article in a periodical. This is usually the data on which the publication is based which enables the findings to be understood. The data may either be deposited directly on the periodical's platform or in an external data repository.