Research data has the most impact when other researchers and the public can find it and use it to build upon the original researcher’s findings.
Researchers struggle with sharing their data in ways that make it findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR). Depositing their data in a repository is only part of the solution.
Data curators are employed by repositories to enrich research data, making the data FAIR through such activities as authentication, archiving, metadata creation, and digital preservation.
But each repository alone cannot supply all the expertise needed to curate the wide variety of data types and discipline-specific data formats it contains, such as spatial data, computer code, databases, chemical spectra, 3-D images, and genomic sequencing data.
To cooperatively, and more effectively, curate all types of research data the Data Curation Network shares staff among participating repositories. The network also expands the skills of data curators and shares best practices by providing free workshops for librarians, curators, and archivists and by developing community resources, such as curation checklists, primers, and workshop content.
The Data Curation Network—a collective of data curators, librarians, library administrators, repository directors, subject experts, and scholars from academic institutions and nonprofit societies—makes FAIR research data available to the world.
