Author: Amy E. Hodge

Every year, more and more Stanford researchers use the Stanford Digital Repository (SDR) to share the work they have done in a way that goes beyond just publishing a paper — they provide direct access to the actual data files so that others may also benefit from their efforts. Graduate student Michael Howland is one such forward-thinking Cardinal who recently deposited the data associated with his article “Wind farm power optimization through wake steering,” out today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“I was wondering if you know anything about getting datasets discoverable on Google Dataset Search?”

We recently received this query from a Stanford researcher who had deposited content into the Stanford Digital Repository.

The short answer: request a DataCite DOI from Stanford Libraries, which you can do by emailing doi-contact@lists.stanford.edu.

For those of you unfamiliar with Google Dataset Search or who are interested in the details behind the response, read on! 

Stanford Libraries is happy to announce our new membership with the non-profit organization DataCite. DataCite provides persistent identifiers known as DOIs (digital object identifiers) for research data and other digital materials. Because of this new partnership, the Libraries will now be able to provide DOI services to the entire Stanford campus, including to groups like SimTK. A DOI service will help us to support diverse needs to make research outputs and other digital materials persistently available in a way that meets the specific requirements implemented by some funding agencies and publishers. 

For nearly four years, the Stanford Digital Repository (SDR) has been home to the research outputs of scientists and scholars from across Stanford’s campus. But while those data files, videos, source code, microscopy images, survey results, maps and more have been discoverable and accessible through the Libraries’ online catalog, SearchWorks, it has been hard to get an overview of all the available data. Until now.

It’s one thing to talk about an area of land under dispute, and it’s another thing entirely to see it on a map. Professor of Political Science Kenneth Schultz demonstrates the validity of this statement with his recent work, “Mapping Interstate Territorial Conflict,” which was published in December in the Journal of Conflict Resolution.