Depositing Research Data with SANDY, NU's Data Repository: Deposit Criteria

Any researcher affiliated with the University of Nebraska system can deposit data with SANDY. This includes faculty, staff, post-docs, and students (undergraduate and graduate). Students participating in short-term projects also are eligible to deposit datasets.

SANDY is intended for inactive datasets--datasets that are finalized and will not change. The repository is not meant for storage, but as a system for long-term preservation and sharing. Here are some general criteria for deposits:

• SANDY is meant for data. Data can be defined as "the information or observations that are associated with a particular project, including experimental specimens, technologies and products" (Office of Research Integrity, Department of Health and Human Services, Guidelines for Responsible Data Management in Scientific Research). Digital data are different things--documents, spreadsheets, transcripts, audio, images, code, survey responses, etc. However, data are distinguished from published results, like papers, posters, and presentations. Published results can be deposited in the Digital Commons (more information about the Digital Commons can be found in the Open Science Guide).
• Data should contain no personally identifiable information. This includes obvious identifiers (Social Security Numbers, names, addresses), as well as any information that could be used to re-identify individuals or private property, either with other data within the dataset or by combining the dataset with other publicly available information. The researcher is responsible for ensuring that data have no PII or other security concerns.
• If depositing data publicly, you must have the right to make these data available to the public. This means you are the sole rights holder or have permissions from all rights-holders to deposit the data with and make it available through SANDY. "Unless superseded by terms of sponsors, other agreements, or University policy (e.g., Copyright), the University [of Nebraska] owns all research data generated or acquired by University employees or non-University of Nebraska employees working in University controlled facilities, regardless of funding source" (Executive Memorandum No. 41). The University permits the sharing of those data that can be shared.