It’s My First Time Storing Data on LDbase

Are you considering sharing your data on LDbase? Hooray! You are participating in the open science movement, and we congratulate you. We will address a few questions you might have before you begin uploading data.

  1. LDbase is a FREE resource. It is an online data repository, funded by the NIH, where you can share your project’s information, datasets, analyses code, data collection methods, articles, etc., likely fulfilling your grant’s requirement to make your data available to the public and other researchers. We will even provide a DOI for you, if you’d like, so you can make your data product citable. LDbase gives you options to upload and store your data with us or provide a link to where the data is stored elsewhere. LDbase gives you one location to connect all of your project’s pieces together.
  2. You are in complete control of your data. YOU, not us. You will create an account with LDbase and maintain control of what you upload and what is visible to others
    • You choose who can view your data: yourself, a list of people you’ve selected, or the public. Your data-sharing selections can be changed at any time.
    • You have a variety of publishing options. For example, you may choose to publish information (metadata) about your project, but not share the data. This would allow the public to know your project exists and who the PIs are, without releasing the actual data yet.
    • You decide when to make your information public. This allows you time to gather all of your project information (metadata) and data (datasets, code) that you’d like to share, and gradually enter it into LDbase over time, without anyone knowing. You decide when you are ready to publish it. You can select a future date to release it, or log into LDbase and click “publish” when you’re ready. Each piece of data can even be released on different dates.
    • You can create one project or dozens of projects.
    • Your metadata and data can change over time, nothing is static. Do you have new data you’d like to add? Updates? Would you like to share code people seem to be asking you for? You may update your project at any time.
    • We allow you the option to assign others, such as post docs or lab managers, the ability to manage your project metadata and data for you. You can add/revoke their access rights at any time.

    As you can see, you are in complete control.

  3. LDbase was built with a Project Hierarchy vision. Unlike most data repositories which are data driven, LDbase is unique in that it is focused on Projects. You will begin by creating a Project, then you will add different pieces of metadata and data to that particular Project. This might include multiple datasets, documentation, publications, posters, lab protocols, surveys, charts, or code you have run on your data. Our Project layout allows people to easily navigate your data, understanding that these data are all connected. You may choose to upload all of your data to the project as a whole at the Project Level, or you may choose to nest and organize items within specific pieces of your data, in a hierarchical manner. For example, do you have graphs or perhaps code that only pertain to one of your datasets (and not the entire project)? You might choose to nest these data under that dataset only.

    Example of Project HierarchyIn the example on the right, the “Vermont Vocabulary Knowledge” Project contains 8 products. We can see that four belong to the project as a whole: Grade1 Dataset, Grade2 Dataset, a Presentation to Open Science and a JSTOR Journal Publication. However, two additional products, a Data Entry Protocol Manual and the Grade1 Codebook, are nested within the “Grade1” Dataset, thus tying them specifically to that dataset. Similarly, two more products, Analyses Code and a Thesis Paper, relate only to the “Grade2” Dataset. You can create a hierarchical system like this, and move your products around at any time within a Project. This is beneficial for larger projects. This system also helps people searching for particular pieces of data or information to fully understand what they are looking at.

    As you enter your Project into LDbase, we will help guide you by asking questions. For example: who are the PI’s, who funded the grant, how was your data collected, which assessments were used. All of these pieces of information are called “metadata”. The more metadata you enter, the more people will find your work when searching and the more citations you will get. So enter as much information as possible. There is a list of metadata we recommend you gather before entering your Project and also some FAQs.

    For more detailed information about LDbase, feel free to click around in our online resources.