ScholarWorks

There are several resources at UMass Amherst for you to store and share your data! 

The Data Repository at ScholarWorks can store your openly accessible data. As a service of the Libraries, sharing data in ScholarWorks is free of charge to all UMass researchers. Learn more about depositing data at ScholarWorks, or email us if you have more questions.

The Data Working Group can advise you on storing large data sets. UMass Amherst has partnerships with a handful of groups that specialize in long-term archiving for large datasets. Please email us to learn more. 

The Data Repository @ ScholarWorks offers long-term storage and public access to the data and datasets produced by scholars at UMass Amherst. 

You can submit your own data and add contextual details to help others find your work. Data and other materials in ScholarWorks are findable by all major search engines.  

To improve findability, accessibility, and reuse of your data, we ask that all data depositors also submit a readme file with their work. Readme files are typically text files that contain general information about your work, including contact information, variable definitions, and more. Note that data deposits without readme files will not be approved until a readme file is completed. We offer a readme file template, or if your discipline has more rigorous and detailed standards, you can use your own. 

If you have questions about depositing your data with ScholarWorks, or with any other repository, please email the Data Working Group.

Feel free to use the language below when filling out grants that require dissemination and sharing of data. Please note that the Data Repository can only accept data that is openly available - we are unable to provide restricted access to data.

A data sharing plan will be used to store and make publicly accessible the data beyond the life of the project. The data will be deposited into the Data Repository @ ScholarWorks, https://scholarworks.umass.edu/data. This University Libraries’ hosted institutional data repository is an open access platform for dissemination and long-term sharing of university research data. In addition, the Data Repository @ ScholarWorks provides long-term storage for data files and maintains persistent DOIs for data sets, facilitating data citations. In accordance to Data Repository @ ScholarWorks policies, the (deidentified, if applicable) data will be accompanied by the appropriate documentation, metadata, and code to facilitate reuse and provide the potential for interoperability with similar data sets.

If you need further assistance with language for a grant, please see Florida International University’s boilerplate library. For more help, contact the Data Working Group. 

Red labels denote a required field that cannot be skipped

• Title - This is the name of the dataset.
• Author(s) - ScholarWorks will assume that you are the first author and will autofill your name.  You may add co-authors by clicking on the green plus button.  You may reorder authors by editing the number to the left of their email address.  (Note: email addresses are not required or visible to users, but they ensure that ScholarWorks will send monthly readership emails to our authors).
• Publication date  - Only the year is required, month and day are optional
• Keywords  - These will not be visible to users, but contribute to a dataset's findability
• Upload data file 
  • Upload the file from your computer - ScholarWorks will prompt you to choose a file.
  • Import from remote site - This will require a direct download link and does not work with Google Drive if you're trying to import a zipped file (as of 8/29/2022).
  • Link out to file on a remote site - This is a good option if your working with a large dataset that lives on an accessible server or if the data lives in another repository.
• Additional unrequired fields
  • Author ORCID identifier - We recommend including author names next to hyperlinked ORCIDs if you are adding multiple ORCIDs to a submission
  • Disciplines - A pre-determined taxonomy that feeds into the Digital Commons Network
  • Description (highly recommended) - An abstract or description of the data that will help give context to readers who will likely find your data through Google.  Abstracts and descriptions also increase the findability of your work.
  • Grant / Award Number and Agency - If applicable
  • Primary Publication Related to this Data - A URL or DOI of a related publication based on this data.  This will generate a related content button on the item's landing page.
  • Additional related content - You can add URLs of additional items related to your data
  • Rights - You may specify your copyright if you choose
  • Creative Commons license:
    • CC-0 (Public Domain)
    • CC-BY (Attribution)
  • Recommended Citation - ScholarWorks will automatically generate a recommended citation if you leave this field blank.  Adding your own recommended citation will override the system-generated one.
  • Cover image - This will become the item's thumbnail when users are browsing the collection.  We will add a default image if you leave this field blank.
  • README and Additional files - README files are required for all data submissions.  They are text files that contain information about other files in a directroy and are helpful at providing context to help ensure that others can correctly interpret your data.  We provide a number of templates for researchers to use.  If you're uploading a .zip file, you may include your README in the .zip.  We will make a note of this on the item's landing page.
  • Embargo period - If for any reason you need your data to be under embargo for a set period of time, please add the date that you'd like the embargo to lift.  Embargoed items cannot be accessed or downloaded by any users until the embargo lifts.
  • Digital Object Identifier (DOI) - If you're using ScholarWorks to link out to data that lives in another repository, please add its DOI here.  If your data does not have a DOI, we will create one when we approve and post your submission.

All members of the UMass Amherst campus are welcome to self-submit datasets that are smaller than 5GB directly to ScholarWorks.

• Navigate to ScholarWorks and click the My Account link in the top right corner.
• You'll then go to https://scholarworks.umass.edu/data/ and click the Submit Data link in the righthand menu under Author Corner.
• Accept the submission agreement 
• After accepting the submission agreement, you'll be taken to the submission form.
  • ScholarWorks will assume that you are the first author, but you can reorder authors by typing a number in the box all the way to the left.  You may add co-authors by clicking the green plus sign.  If an author has previously submitted to ScholarWorks, their email will be suggested as you start typing in the Email field.

• Complete all required fields in the submission form.
• If your README is not .zipped with the rest of your data files or if you have additional files or folders to upload, check the README and Additional files box. 
• Once you've completed the submission form, click the submit button.  If you've checked the additional files box, you'll be taken to a new page that will prompt you to upload additional files.  If you do not have any additional files, you will see

• You may revise your item's metadata if you see any mistakes, make another submission, or log out of ScholarWorks.
• You'll receive an automated email from ScholarWorks to confirm your submission and a member of the Data Working Group will be in touch if they have any questions about your data, missing files, corrections to metadata, etc.  Once the Data Working Group has processed and approved your submission, you'll receive an additional notification from ScholarWorks as well as confirmation of your DOI.