Research data archiving is the long-term storage of scholarly research data, including the natural sciences, social sciences, and life sciences. The various academic journals have differing policies regarding how much of their data and methods researchers are required to store in a public archive, and what is actually archived varies widely between different disciplines. Similarly, the major grant-giving institutions have varying attitudes towards public archival of data. In general, the tradition of science has been for publications to contain sufficient information to allow fellow researchers to replicate and therefore test the research. In recent years this approach has become increasingly strained as research in some areas depends on large datasets which cannot easily be replicated independently. Data archiving is more important in some fields than others. In a few fields, all of the data necessary to replicate the work is already available in the journal article. In drug development, a great deal of data is generated and must be archived so researchers can verify that the reports the drug companies publish accurately reflect the data. The requirement of data archiving is a recent development in the

history of science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal. Science's earliest roots can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Meso ...

. It was made possible by advances in information technology allowing large amounts of data to be stored and accessed from central locations. For example, the American Geophysical Union (AGU) adopted their first policy on data archiving in 1993, about three years after the beginning of the WWW. This policy mandates that datasets cited in AGU papers must be archived by a recognised data center; it permits the creation of "data papers"; and it establishes AGU's role in maintaining data archives. But it makes no requirements on paper authors to archive their data. Prior to organized data archiving, researchers wanting to evaluate or replicate a paper would have to request data and methods information from the author. The academic community expects authors to share supplemental data. This process was recognized as wasteful of time and energy and obtained mixed results. Information could become lost or corrupted over the years. In some cases, authors simply refuse to provide the information. The need for data archiving and due diligence is greatly increased when the research deals with health issues or public policy formation.

Selected policies by journals

''Biotropica''

NB: ''Biotropica'' is one of only two journals that pays the fees for authors depositing data at Dryad.

''The American Naturalist''

''Journal of Heredity''

''Molecular Ecology''

''Nature''

''Science''

Royal Society

''Journal of Archaeological Science''

Policies by funding agencies

In the United States, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has tightened requirements on data archiving. Researchers seeking funding from NSF are now required to file a data management plan as a two-page supplement to the grant application. The NSF Datanet initiative has resulted in funding of the Data Observation Network for Earth ( DataONE) project, which will provide scientific data archiving for ecological and environmental data produced by scientists worldwide. DataONE's stated goal is to preserve and provide access to multi-scale, multi-discipline, and multi-national data. The community of users for DataONE includes scientists, ecosystem managers, policy makers, students, educators, and the public. The German DFG requires that research data should be archived in the researcher's own institution or an appropriate nationwide infrastructure for at least 10 years. The British Digital Curation Centre maintains an overview of funder's data policies."Overview of funders' data policies , Digital Curation Centre"
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Data archives

Research data is archived in data libraries or data archives.

References

{{Reflist

Notes

* Registry of Research Data Repositories ''re3data.org'

* Statistical checklist required by ''Nature'

* Policies of ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (U.S.)'

* The US National Committee for CODAT

* The Role of Data and Program Code Archives in the Future of Economic Research

* Data sharing and replication – Gary King websit

* The Case for Due Diligence When Empirical Research is Used in Policy Formation by McCullough and McKitric

* Thoughts on Refereed Journal Publication by Chuck Doswel

* “How to encourage the right behaviour” An opinion piece published in ''Nature'', March, 200

* NASA Astrophysics Data Systembr>
* Panton Principles for Open Data in Science, at Citizendiu

* Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Researchbr>
Computer archives Data management Data publishing Digital preservation Information retrieval techniques Knowledge representation Structured storage