Research Data Services

The Texas Data Repository (TDR) is a multi-institutional data repository hosted by the Texas Digital Library (TDL) and based on Harvard University’s Dataverse platform. TDR is a long-term solution for the preservation and dissemination of UT’s research data and meets the criteria for publisher and funder data sharing requirements. Benefits of publishing data in TDR include:

• Preservation of published datasets for a minimum of ten years.
• Free to use for faculty, staff, and students at UT Austin.
• Published datasets are assigned Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs), are publicly accessible, and are free to access and download.
• Published datasets can be versioned, while maintaining the same DOI and retaining previous copies of the deposit.
• Direct, personalized support from library staff.

The full set of policies required for use of TDR is available here.

The TDR User Guide is available here. The general Dataverse User Guide (which includes some features that are not enabled in TDR) is available here.

For personalized assistance utilizing the Texas Data Repository and preparing your data for publication please reach email or schedule an appointment with Bryan Gee (Open Research Coordinator for Data and Software) or Michael Shensky (UT Libraries Head of Research Data Services), using buttons in the right column of this page.

Before you move forward with depositing your research data in the Texas Data Repository it is a good idea to consult the checklist below to ensure that it is suitable for the Repository, that it will be well described, and easy for other researchers to access and cite.

European Studies Librarian Ian Goodale has developed some Python scripts that can facilitate data sharing in accordance with best practices (e.g., converting files to non-proprietary formats to maximize access). The scripts are available in Ian's tx_data_repo GitHub repository.