PUL launches Princeton Data Commons research data repository

The Princeton Data Commons team. Photo credit: Brandon Johnson.

Princeton University Library (PUL), in collaboration with the Office of the Dean for Research, and the Office of Information Technology, launched its own open data repository, Princeton Data Commons (PDC) on April 30, 2024. A multidisciplinary digital repository, PDC is designed to archive and publicly disseminate data and code that result from research by members of the Princeton University community. 

“Very often, research conducted by members of the Princeton community is publicly funded and therefore entails an explicit responsibility to share the products of the research openly with taxpayers,” said Meghan Testerman, Open Research and Scholarship Librarian and Head of Princeton Research Data Service. “This repository exists to support long-term archiving and open dissemination of any digital research product from the Princeton community, meeting funder and publisher policies, as well as open research principles.”

While many research communities have specific repositories for storing relevant research data – for example, OpenNeuro for neuroimaging data – PDC exists to fill the gaps for researchers who don’t have a “domain-specific repository.” 

Testerman added, “You can archive your data in our data repository and know that it will be well taken care of.” 

As a platform offered by the Princeton Research Data Service (PRDS), all submissions to PDC are reviewed by a team of data management experts who are focused on findability, accessibility, and long-term-preservation. PRDS also offers consultations and educational programming on data management best practices (such as preparing a data management plan and preparing data for publication) and hosts custom workshops for classes, labs, and research groups.

“The release of PDC marks a significant step forward in our institutional commitment to open data, and is an important milestone in our ongoing work to advance sustainable open sharing and publishing of data,” said Wind Cowles, the Library’s Associate Dean for Data, Research, and Teaching and former head of PRDS. “This new platform will enable us to be more agile in responding to changes in a rapidly evolving research data landscape.”   

All of PRDS’s services are available to all of Princeton’s affiliates across all disciplines and research areas. 

Before submitting to PDC, researchers should familiarize themselves with the acceptance and retention policy. The full process of getting data or code into PDC is available on the Princeton Data Commons website.   

“After months of beta testing, PDC is in a stable state right now, and we don’t have any major reforms planned for the near term,” said Matt Chandler, Lead for Research Data Infrastructure Services. “That said, our team is committed to continuous improvement of PDC for the long haul. If anyone in the Princeton community has feedback about how we can improve our systems, we’d love to hear it.”

To read more about Princeton Data Commons, visit the PDC website. Questions can be emailed to prds@princeton.edu. 

Published on July 15, 2024

Written by Brandon Johnson, Communications Strategist

Media Contact: Stephanie Oster, Publicity Manager