University of Utah Research Data Repository

Help

The Hive is a component of a suite of services provided by the J. Willard Marriott Library designed to broadly disseminate the intellectual contributions in research, teaching and creativity made by the University of Utah community and to ensure its longevity. Here you will find information on preparing, uploading and depositing your data.

A data repository is a “subtype of a sustainable information infrastructure which provides long-term storage and access to research data that is the basis for a scholarly publication” according to the Registry of Research Data Repositories. We would extend the definition to include datasets not a basis for scholarly publication, such as negative data.

The Hive is a publicly-accessible repository for research data generated by University of Utah researchers, students, and staff. It is maintained by the Marriott Library IT and Digital Collections. Data librarians at both the Marriott Library and the Eccles Health Science Library are involved to assist in the submission of datasets.

The Hive is a repository for datasets and associated documentation. Uspace is for publications including journal publications, posters, technical reports, thesis and dissertations.

No, sorry. The Hive is for the finalized data resulting from research. See the library guide Data Storage for Research Activities to learn about the options the campus supports.

What did you say in your grant’s data management/sharing plan? The data resulting from research conducted at the U and funded by federal agencies/foundations requiring a data management/sharing plan should be deposited in the data repository indicated in the grant application. If you would prefer to deposit it in The Hive, then please contact the relevant program manager about the change.

If a data management/sharing plan was not required or a specific data repository was not indicated, then consider a discipline-specific data repository for your data. Your data will have greater visibility to the researchers interested in your work. They can reuse your data and cite it in the same way they would cite your publications. See the library guide Repositories for Research Data for additional information or ask mlib-data@lists.utah.edu for assistance.

If an appropriate discipline-specific data repository is not yet available, then The Hive would be the best place for your data because:

  1. It meets funding agency requirements
  2. It meets journal editors’ requirements – every dataset submitted to The Hive receives a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and suggested data citation for you to submit with your manuscript. The DOI facilitates linking between publications and the underlying datasets.
  3. It fulfills University requirements. The University of Utah requires researchers to preserve their data for a minimum of three years (and for some projects longer) after the close-out of the project. The Hive will make sure your data is safely archived for the required period of time.
  4. Local assistance is available. University of Utah data librarians can meet with you to prepare your data, README file and metadata for submission into The Hive. Contact us to set up a consultation.
  5. It is free to deposit data into The Hive, in most cases.

If there is a discipline specific data repository available for your data, then this would be the preferred repository. Your data will have greater visibility to the researchers interested in your work. They can reuse your data and cite it in the same way they would cite your publications. See the library guide Repositories for Research Data for additional information or ask mlib-data@lists.utah.edu for assistance.

If an appropriate discipline-specific data repository is not yet available, then The Hive would be the best place for your data because:

  1. It meets funding agency requirements
  2. It meets journal editors’ requirements – every dataset submitted to The Hive receives a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and suggested data citation for you to submit with your manuscript. The DOI facilitates linking between publications and the underlying datasets.
  3. It fulfills University requirements. The University of Utah requires researchers to preserve their data for a minimum of three years (and for some projects longer) after the close-out of the project. The Hive will make sure your data is safely archived for the required period of time.
  4. Local assistance is available. University of Utah data librarians can meet with you to prepare your data, README file and metadata for submission into The Hive. Contact us to set up a consultation.
  5. It is free to deposit data into The Hive, in most cases.
Faculty, postdocs, graduate students, staff and undergraduate students at the University of Utah can submit data to The Hive.
The Hive accepts research datasets from all disciplines created by University of Utah student, faculty, or staff member. In addition, files necessary to understand and interpret the research data like README files, code, protocols, codebooks, surveys, etc. should be deposited along with the dataset. The Hive is not the appropriate repository for publications, monographs, or non-data related forms of scholarship. These forms of scholarship can be deposited in Uspace .
A DOI or Digital Object Identifier is a persistent identifier used to uniquely identify objects. You may be familiar with the DOI system used for linking electronic journal articles. The DOI system began in 2000 and is managed by the International DOI Foundation . Refer to their handbook for additional information.
Yes, we can help. You can contact us at mlib-data@lists.utah.edu for assistance. You can refer to the instructions. Please understand that the preparation of your data, documentation, metadata takes time and must be completed and approved prior to the minting of a DOI. Minting a DOI can take 48 hours to become active, but we can provide you with the DOI for submission to your editor prior to becoming active.

Metadata is structured information that describes, explains, locates, or otherwise makes it easier to retrieve, use, or manage an information resource. Metadata is often called data about data or information about information.

For submissions to The Hive, we will assist you in answering a list of questions about your dataset. This list of questions and their corresponding answers is the metadata for your submission. The metadata plus the DOI enables search engines to locate your data.

In general, you should make your README useful enough that in 12 months, after you may have forgotten how and what you did, that you can refer back to your README file and be able to re-create everything you did to generate your data. This is also a resource for others who may be looking at your data and have no familiarity with it at all.
Submitters must agree to a set of policies established to ensure compliance with federal, State of Utah and University of Utah regulations and policies. In addition, there are polices to ensure your submissions are compatible with the software underlining The Hive. Please read the Deposit Agreement prior to submitting your data.
The Hive file size limit is 5GB. If using Ubox to transfer files, the limit is 50GB. Refer to the Instructions or contact us at mlib-data@lists.utah.edu for assistance.
Currently there are no format limitations. However, we do encourage users to generate data in standardized and non-proprietary formats for re-use in the future.

An embargo period is a length of time when author, publisher, or other party wishes to restrict access to an object. Typically, the author submits a dataset to the repository, but only the metadata will be made openly accessible during the embargo period. Once the embargo period expires, the full dataset download is released to the open web. Embargo periods vary between a few months to a few years. DOIs remain valid throughout the process.

Funding agencies allow for data to be embargoed. Check with your agency to determine the length of time and when the embargo is initiated.

Possibly. There are several options for archiving data that will help you fulfill grant mandates and publish your data. One option is to find an appropriate subject-based repository to share your data. See the guide, Repositories for Research Data. A data librarian can help you determine if such a repository exists in your field and if it will meet your needs. If we are unable to find a subject-based repository for your data, an institutional repository, such as The Hive, is likely the right place to store your data.
The Hive is an open access repository and does not accept private datasets. When you upload data to The Hive, you have the option of placing a one-year embargo on your data to keep it private until you have published the results of your research. All data submitted to The Hive must be openly available within one year and shared under a Creative Commons license. If this is an issue, then please contact us at mlib-data@lists.utah.edu. We may be able to help you locate private storage for your data.
Yes, we accept data that is collected as part of multi-institution collaborations as long as at least one P.I. is from the University of Utah. Contact mlib-data@lists.utah.edu about providing access to The Hive for your collaborators.
It is completely up to you and your funding requirements where you store your data. There are numerous data repository services in existence for most disciplines. Be aware however, that many of them charge significant amounts of money for that service whereas this is free to the UU community.
At this point in time, the Library does not charge to submit to The Hive. The only cost will be your time in preparing the data, metadata and README file.
The citation format is:
Author/Creator(s) (Date deposited to The Hive). Title of the dataset. Version. The Hive: University of Utah Research Data Repository. DOI or URL for the DOI.
No, The Hive is a publicly accessible repository and cannot accept restricted research data.
Yes! One of the benefits of using The Hive is that we can help you fulfill funding agency and journal requirements to share your data. Most, if not all, federal agencies and foundations require researchers to share their data. Including The Hive in your data management/sharing plan may strengthen your proposal and make you more competitive for funding.

The Hive uses Creative Commons licenses to facilitate sharing and reuse of research data. It’s important that data have clear rights attached to it so future users know what they can and can’t do with data they find in The Hive. Our default license is a Creative Commons license that requires future users to give attribution to the data creator and does not allow the data to be used for commercial purposes (“Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International” License or CC BY-NC 4.0), but you may choose from a limited amount of other Creative Commons licenses that might better suit your needs.

For additional information refer to the Creative Commons website.

Not necessarily. We do offer the “other” option for you to fill in with other licenses, e.g. MIT, GNU General Public License (GPLv3), Apache License 2.0, etc..

The Hive is intended to be a permanent scholarly record, therefore removing content from public viewing is strongly discouraged. Don’t forget it is linked to a publication.

There may be circumstances when it is necessary for authors or The Hive administrators to remove/update content in the repository. If this happens, then a citation to the removed content will remain. The authors will be notified before removal of any content. Authors wishing to remove or update their content should contact us at mlib-data@lists.utah.edu.