Data Publication
Open Access and Open Science
Open Access publishing means that you make your publication freely accessible online to everyone without restrictions. The Vrije Universiteit believes that government-funded research should be available free of charge to as many people as possible. To that end, the VU Library offers a guide on how to go about Open Access Publishing.
Open Access publishing is one component of Open Science. UNESCO defines Open Science as
a set of principles and practices that aim to make scientific research from all fields accessible to everyone for the benefits of scientists and society as a whole. Open science is about making sure not only that scientific knowledge is accessible but also that the production of that knowledge itself is inclusive, equitable and sustainable
This includes making openly available research data, methods, and documentation where possible. As such, RDM and the practices outlined in the Research Support Handbook are a precondition of Open Science.
You can read more about Open Science in the Netherlands on the website of the Nationaal Programma Open Science and join the Open Science Community Amsterdam, the community of VU employees interested in Open Science (joint with the University of Amsterdam and Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences).
Publishing your data in a data journal
In addition to archiving research data in a data repository, you may choose to publish an article about your data collection. This is not necessarily common for all disciplines. Some examples of data journals where you can publish your data and dataset, are:
- Scientific Data - Nature
- Geoscience Data Journal
- Gigascience
- Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data
- Earth System Science Data
- Journal of Open Archaeology Data
- Journal of Open Psychology Data
Archiving your data in a repository or publishing a data article are both ways to get a Persistent Identifier for your data. It is also important to consider Data and Software Licensing.