Guide to data.ncl

When you create or edit a record you will need to apply a licence to the data. Deposited data should as open as possible as closed as necessary and the conditions of the licence applied to the data will affect this. 

We recommend licensing data under an open licence that allows for wide reuse and suggest a CC0 or CC-BY licence for datasets and MIT or Apache 2.0 for code. 

Figshare provide a guide to the most appropriate licence for data, but you can get in touch with the Research Data Service if you have any questions. 

If you are registering a dataset archived elsewhere select the same licence that it has already been published under.

You can create a link to data that has been deposited elsewhere, such as funder specified or a discipline specific repository. Creating this link in data.ncl will increase the discovery of the data and can be used to form part of a collection or project. Where possible, the link should be a doi or another type of persistent identifier to maintain the connection to the dataset.

You can create a metadata record only for data that requires to be part of the catalogue but cannot be uploaded. This could be where the data are non-digital or highly sensitive in nature.

Create a new item record or edit a record in the My data tab and tick the metadata record only and provide a reason.

You can deposit data but apply an embargo on the whole record or individual items. This allows the data to be deposited and a link created for inclusion in scholarly outputs, but to delay the access to the data. This is particularly useful if you’re planning to publish from the same dataset again.

There are two options when applying an embargo:

• file level: the metadata record will be publicly visible but the data behind the record will be embargoed
• whole item: the metadata record and data will be not be visible until the embargo has expired (this limits the discoverability of the data record)

You may want to make the data record findable but not openly accessible by making the data confidential. Consider the nature of the data as to whether the data can be uploaded to data.ncl or a metadata record is more appropriate. For highly sensitive data (including identifiable NHS patient data) a metadata record is more appropriate.

When creating a confidential data record, providing a reason and noting if the data can ever be shared will help the data curation process.

Everybody has an initial 20GB of archive storage in data.ncl. If you require more, you can simply request the additional storage through the My data tab. To support the request, please provide a reason as this will help us process the application and inform future archive storage provisions. 

You can create a private link to the data you have archived with data.ncl before it is published openly. This can be useful if you would like to share access to project partners. To create the link upload the data and then click generate private link and save changes rather than publish.

Once the data is ready for publication simply  go back to the record in the My data view and publish the record.

You can also reserve a digital object identifier (DOI) for the archived data, which is useful for peer reviewed journal publishing process.

Rather than publishing the data ahead of the article you can reserve the DOI to create the data access statement for inclusion in the paper and then publish the data once the author accepted manuscript has been submitted. 

Data.ncl provides an ORCID integration that, once connected, will allow you to push all of your public items from data.ncl to ORCID.

To push all of your public items from data.ncl to ORCID you need to ensure DataCite is authorised on your ORCID account. DataCite are responsible for issuing the DOIs to data in data.ncl. Once authorised, your public data.ncl items will be displayed in the work section of your ORCID profile.

Step 1: Sign in at https://profiles.datacite.org/

Step 2: Sign in with your ORCID

Step 3: Authorise:

1. Scroll down to the Works section and click +Add works
2. Select Search & link, you’ll be presented with the services you can link to
3. Select

You will be presented with a permissions form. Upon reviewing the Privacy Policy, tick the box alongside 'Allow this permission until I revoke it' and select Authorise.

You will then be taken to your DataCite settings page. To check the authorisation has worked successfully head back to ORCiD and to your Account Settings tab. ORCiD should now be listed as a Trusted organisation.

Furthermore, you can set up a DataCite profile (if you don't already have one) and then give DataCite permission to automatically update your ORCID record. You only have to do that once and DataCite will keep on updating your ORCID record every time they mint a DOI, where your ORCID iD is included in the metadata. See https://profiles.datacite.org/ and click on ORCID Auto-Update once you have a profile set up. In this way, you do not have to keep manually adding Figshare items to your ORCID account. This is especially useful when you have a lot of data!

Step 4: Sync your ORCiD to your data.ncl profile:

Go to your profile page on your data.ncl account and click on Connect and enable syncing with your ORCiD

Step 5: Sign in to ORCID

Step 6: Authorise

Step 7: Your ORCID is now synced

Figshare provides a step-by-step guide to github intergration.

Collections are ways of collating published data within the data.ncl under a theme. They can be either private or public and can be assigned a DOI. To creating a collection:

• Go to the Collections tab under My data
• click '+Create a new collection'
• Complete all the sections with a green dot to obtain a DOI

Once you've created the Collection, select Add public items or My data. You can then select the data to the Collection. If you select from public items, you can search and select the items you wish to add to your collection. The same process applies if you choose from your data.

Once you’ve collected your data, you can make your Collection public by selecting the Manage gear wheel on the right side of the screen and selecting Publish collection. Once you’ve published a collection, it’s permanent.

Projects are collaborative space to prepare data for deposit. You can upload data that is in progress and users within and beyond Newcastle University can make comments.

Go to your My data page, select the Projects tab and click 'Create a new project' button. Complete the metadata fields as descriptively as possible. Either select the individual or group project option. 

Individual projects

• everyone uses their own quota and account storage
• people take their data records with them if they leave the project
• items are created using the metadata schema of the submitter
• items published by users from outside the organisation don’t have to go through review

Group projects

• submitters’ quota will not be used, storage allocation comes directly from the project
• all work is stored on institutional storage and remains within the project space if people leave
• contributors must adopt the metadata schema of the project owner
• items published by users from outside the organisation have to go through review

Add users to the project by searching on the right-hand side. Add users not currently on Figshare by clicking on the invite new users link. Users can either be collaborators or viewers. Collaborators can comment on the project and the data within it and upload items, while viewers can only view the data. To make the project public, you must first make at least one item public within the project.

Please note: The project owner, collaborators, and viewers cannot edit another uploader’s items. Items must be downloaded, edited, and re-uploaded to the project.

Adding notes

Select add a new item, which takes you to a new item form. Once you’ve saved the item, it will appear in the home page of the project. As a collaborator, you can comment on individual items within the project or on the project as a whole.