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arXiv is a free distribution service and an open-access archive for scholarly articles in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics. Materials on this site are not peer-reviewed by arXiv.

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21 Legit Research Databases for Free Journal Articles in 2024

#scribendiinc

Written by Scribendi

Has this ever happened to you? While looking for websites for research, you come across a research paper site that claims to connect academics to a peer-reviewed article database for free.

Intrigued, you search for keywords related to your topic, only to discover that you must pay a hefty subscription fee to access the service. After the umpteenth time being duped, you begin to wonder if there's even such a thing as free journal articles.

Subscription fees and paywalls are often the bane of students and academics, especially those at small institutions who don't provide access to many free article directories and repositories.

Whether you're working on an undergraduate paper, a PhD dissertation, or a medical research study, we want to help you find tools to locate and access the information you need to produce well-researched, compelling, and innovative work.

Below, we discuss why peer-reviewed articles are superior and list out the best free article databases to use in 2024.

Download Our Free Research Database Roundup PDF

Why peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles are more authoritative.

Determining what sources are reliable can be challenging. Peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles are the gold standard in academic research. Reputable academic journals have a rigorous peer-review process.

The peer review process provides accountability to the academic community, as well as to the content of the article. The peer review process involves qualified experts in a specific (often very specific) field performing a review of an article's methods and findings to determine things like quality and credibility.

Peer-reviewed articles can be found in peer-reviewed article databases and research databases, and if you know that a database of journals is reliable, that can offer reassurances about the reliability of a free article. Peer review is often double blind, meaning that the author removes all identifying information and, likewise, does not know the identity of the reviewers. This helps reviewers maintain objectivity and impartiality so as to judge an article based on its merit.

Where to Find Peer-Reviewed Articles

Peer-reviewed articles can be found in a variety of research databases. Below is a list of some of the major databases you can use to find peer-reviewed articles and other sources in disciplines spanning the humanities, sciences, and social sciences.

What Are Open Access Journals?

An open access (OA) journal is a journal whose content can be accessed without payment. This provides scholars, students, and researchers with free journal articles. OA journals use alternate methods of funding to cover publication costs so that articles can be published without having to pass those publication costs on to the reader.

Some of these funding models include standard funding methods like advertising, public funding, and author payment models, where the author pays a fee in order to publish in the journal. There are OA journals that have non-peer-reviewed academic content, as well as journals that focus on dissertations, theses, and papers from conferences, but the main focus of OA is peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles.

The internet has certainly made it easier to access research articles and other scholarly publications without needing access to a university library, and OA takes another step in that direction by removing financial barriers to academic content.

Choosing Wisely

Features of legitimate oa journals.

There are things to look out for when trying to decide if a free publication journal is legitimate:

Mission statement —The mission statement for an OA journal should be available on their website.

Publication history —Is the journal well established? How long has it been available?

Editorial board —Who are the members of the editorial board, and what are their credentials?

Indexing —Can the journal be found in a reliable database?

Peer review —What is the peer review process? Does the journal allow enough time in the process for a reliable assessment of quality?

Impact factor —What is the average number of times the journal is cited over a two-year period?

Features of Illegitimate OA Journals

There are predatory publications that take advantage of the OA format, and they are something to be wary of. Here are some things to look out for:

Contact information —Is contact information provided? Can it be verified?

Turnaround —If the journal makes dubious claims about the amount of time from submission to publication, it is likely unreliable.

Editorial board —Much like determining legitimacy, looking at the editorial board and their credentials can help determine illegitimacy.

Indexing —Can the journal be found in any scholarly databases?

Peer review —Is there a statement about the peer review process? Does it fit what you know about peer review?

How to Find Scholarly Articles

Identify keywords.

Keywords are included in an article by the author. Keywords are an excellent way to find content relevant to your research topic or area of interest. In academic searches, much like you would on a search engine, you can use keywords to navigate through what is available to find exactly what you're looking for.

Authors provide keywords that will help you easily find their article when researching a related topic, often including general terms to accommodate broader searches, as well as some more specific terms for those with a narrower scope. Keywords can be used individually or in combination to refine your scholarly article search.

Narrow Down Results

Sometimes, search results can be overwhelming, and searching for free articles on a journal database is no exception, but there are multiple ways to narrow down your results. A good place to start is discipline.

What category does your topic fall into (psychology, architecture, machine learning, etc.)? You can also narrow down your search with a year range if you're looking for articles that are more recent.

A Boolean search can be incredibly helpful. This entails including terms like AND between two keywords in your search if you need both keywords to be in your results (or, if you are looking to exclude certain keywords, to exclude these words from the results).

Consider Different Avenues

If you're not having luck using keywords in your search for free articles, you may still be able to find what you're looking for by changing your tactics. Casting a wider net sometimes yields positive results, so it may be helpful to try searching by subject if keywords aren't getting you anywhere.

You can search for a specific publisher to see if they have OA publications in the academic journal database. And, if you know more precisely what you're looking for, you can search for the title of the article or the author's name.

Determining the Credibility of Scholarly Sources

Ensuring that sources are both credible and reliable is crucial to academic research. Use these strategies to help evaluate the usefulness of scholarly sources:

Peer Review : Look for articles that have undergone a rigorous peer-review process. Peer-reviewed articles are typically vetted by experts in the field, ensuring the accuracy of the research findings.

Tip: To determine whether an article has undergone rigorous peer review, review the journal's editorial policies, which are often available on the journal's website. Look for information about the peer-review process, including the criteria for selecting reviewers, the process for handling conflicts of interest, and any transparency measures in place.

Publisher Reputation : Consider the reputation of the publisher. Established publishers, such as well-known academic journals, are more likely to adhere to high editorial standards and publishing ethics.
Author Credentials : Evaluate the credentials and expertise of the authors. Check their affiliations, academic credentials, and past publications to assess their authority in the field.
Citations and References : Examine the citations and references provided in the article. A well-researched article will cite credible sources to support its arguments and findings. Verify the accuracy of the cited sources and ensure they are from reputable sources.
Publication Date : Consider the publication date of the article. While older articles may still be relevant, particularly in certain fields, it is best to prioritize recent publications for up-to-date research and findings.
Journal Impact Factor : Assess the journal's impact factor or other metrics that indicate its influence and reputation within the academic community. Higher impact factor journals are generally considered more prestigious and reliable.

Tip: Journal Citation Reports (JCR), produced by Clarivate Analytics, is a widely used source for impact factor data. You can access JCR through academic libraries or directly from the Clarivate Analytics website if you have a subscription.

Peer Recommendations : Seek recommendations from peers, mentors, or professors in your field. They can provide valuable insights and guidance on reputable sources and journals within your area of study.
Cross-Verification : Cross-verify the information presented in the article with other credible sources. Compare findings, methodologies, and conclusions with similar studies to ensure consistency and reliability.

By employing these strategies, researchers can confidently evaluate the credibility and reliability of scholarly sources, ensuring the integrity of their research contributions in an ever-evolving landscape.

The Top 21 Free Online Journal and Research Databases

Navigating OA journals, research article databases, and academic websites trying to find high-quality sources for your research can really make your head spin. What constitutes a reliable database? What is a useful resource for your discipline and research topic? How can you find and access full-text, peer-reviewed articles?

Fortunately, we're here to help. Having covered some of the ins and outs of peer review, OA journals, and how to search for articles, we have compiled a list of the top 21 free online journals and the best research databases. This list of databases is a great resource to help you navigate the wide world of academic research.

These databases provide a variety of free sources, from abstracts and citations to full-text, peer-reviewed OA journals. With databases covering specific areas of research and interdisciplinary databases that provide a variety of material, these are some of our favorite free databases, and they're totally legit!

CORE is a multidisciplinary aggregator of OA research. CORE has the largest collection of OA articles available. It allows users to search more than 219 million OA articles. While most of these link to the full-text article on the original publisher's site, or to a PDF available for download, five million records are hosted directly on CORE.

CORE's mission statement is a simple and straightforward commitment to offering OA articles to anyone, anywhere in the world. They also host communities that are available for researchers to join and an ambassador community to enhance their services globally. In addition to a straightforward keyword search, CORE offers advanced search options to filter results by publication type, year, language, journal, repository, and author.

CORE's user interface is easy to use and navigate. Search results can be sorted based on relevance or recency, and you can search for relevant content directly from the results screen.

Collection : 219,537,133 OA articles

Other Services : Additional services are available from CORE, with extras that are geared toward researchers, repositories, and businesses. There are tools for accessing raw data, including an API that provides direct access to data, datasets that are available for download, and FastSync for syncing data content from the CORE database.

CORE has a recommender plug-in that suggests relevant OA content in the database while conducting a search and a discovery feature that helps you discover OA versions of paywalled articles. Other features include tools for managing content, such as a dashboard for managing repository output and the Repository Edition service to enhance discoverability.

Good Source of Peer-Reviewed Articles : Yes

Advanced Search Options : Language, author, journal, publisher, repository, DOI, year

2. ScienceOpen

Functioning as a research and publishing network, ScienceOpen offers OA to more than 74 million articles in all areas of science. Although you do need to register to view the full text of articles, registration is free. The advanced search function is highly detailed, allowing you to find exactly the research you're looking for.

The Berlin- and Boston-based company was founded in 2013 to "facilitate open and public communications between academics and to allow ideas to be judged on their merit, regardless of where they come from." Search results can be exported for easy integration with reference management systems.

You can also bookmark articles for later research. There are extensive networking options, including your Science Open profile, a forum for interacting with other researchers, the ability to track your usage and citations, and an interactive bibliography. Users have the ability to review articles and provide their knowledge and insight within the community.

Collection : 74,560,631

Other Services : None

Advanced Search Options : Content type, source, author, journal, discipline

3. Directory of Open Access Journals

A multidisciplinary, community-curated directory, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) gives researchers access to high-quality peer-reviewed journals. It has archived more than two million articles from 17,193 journals, allowing you to either browse by subject or search by keyword.

The site was launched in 2003 with the aim of increasing the visibility of OA scholarly journals online. Content on the site covers subjects from science, to law, to fine arts, and everything in between. DOAJ has a commitment to "increase the visibility, accessibility, reputation, usage and impact of quality, peer-reviewed, OA scholarly research journals globally, regardless of discipline, geography or language."

Information about the journal is available with each search result. Abstracts are also available in a collapsible format directly from the search screen. The scholarly article website is somewhat simple, but it is easy to navigate. There are 16 principles of transparency and best practices in scholarly publishing that clearly outline DOAJ policies and standards.

Collection : 6,817,242

Advanced Search Options : Subject, journal, year

4. Education Resources Information Center

The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) of the Institution of Education Sciences allows you to search by topic for material related to the field of education. Links lead to other sites, where you may have to purchase the information, but you can search for full-text articles only. You can also search only peer-reviewed sources.

The service primarily indexes journals, gray literature (such as technical reports, white papers, and government documents), and books. All sources of material on ERIC go through a formal review process prior to being indexed. ERIC's selection policy is available as a PDF on their website.

The ERIC website has an extensive FAQ section to address user questions. This includes categories like general questions, peer review, and ERIC content. There are also tips for advanced searches, as well as general guidance on the best way to search the database. ERIC is an excellent database for content specific to education.

Collection : 1,292,897

Advanced Search Options : Boolean

5. arXiv e-Print Archive

The arXiv e-Print Archive is run by Cornell University Library and curated by volunteer moderators, and it now offers OA to more than one million e-prints.

There are advisory committees for all eight subjects available on the database. With a stated commitment to an "emphasis on openness, collaboration, and scholarship," the arXiv e-Print Archive is an excellent STEM resource.

The interface is not as user-friendly as some of the other databases available, and the website hosts a blog to provide news and updates, but it is otherwise a straightforward math and science resource. There are simple and advanced search options, and, in addition to conducting searches for specific topics and articles, users can browse content by subject. The arXiv e-Print Archive clearly states that they do not peer review the e-prints in the database.

Collection : 1,983,891

Good Source of Peer-Reviewed Articles : No

Advanced Search Options : Subject, date, title, author, abstract, DOI

6. Social Science Research Network

The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) is a collection of papers from the social sciences community. It is a highly interdisciplinary platform used to search for scholarly articles related to 67 social science topics. SSRN has a variety of research networks for the various topics available through the free scholarly database.

The site offers more than 700,000 abstracts and more than 600,000 full-text papers. There is not yet a specific option to search for only full-text articles, but, because most of the papers on the site are free access, it's not often that you encounter a paywall. There is currently no option to search for only peer-reviewed articles.

You must become a member to use the services, but registration is free and enables you to interact with other scholars around the world. SSRN is "passionately committed to increasing inclusion, diversity and equity in scholarly research," and they encourage and discuss the use of inclusive language in scholarship whenever possible.

Collection : 1,058,739 abstracts; 915,452 articles

Advanced Search Options : Term, author, date, network

7. Public Library of Science

Public Library of Science (PLOS) is a big player in the world of OA science. Publishing 12 OA journals, the nonprofit organization is committed to facilitating openness in academic research. According to the site, "all PLOS content is at the highest possible level of OA, meaning that scientific articles are immediately and freely available to anyone, anywhere."

PLOS outlines four fundamental goals that guide the organization: break boundaries, empower researchers, redefine quality, and open science. All PLOS journals are peer-reviewed, and all 12 journals uphold rigorous ethical standards for research, publication, and scientific reporting.

PLOS does not offer advanced search options. Content is organized by topic into research communities that users can browse through, in addition to options to search for both articles and journals. The PLOS website also has resources for peer reviewers, including guidance on becoming a reviewer and on how to best participate in the peer review process.

Collection : 12 journals

Advanced Search Options : None

8. OpenDOAR

OpenDOAR, or the Directory of Open Access Repositories, is a comprehensive resource for finding free OA journals and articles. Using Google Custom Search, OpenDOAR combs through OA repositories around the world and returns relevant research in all disciplines.

The repositories it searches through are assessed and categorized by OpenDOAR staff to ensure they meet quality standards. Inclusion criteria for the database include requirements for OA content, global access, and categorically appropriate content, in addition to various other quality assurance measures. OpenDOAR has metadata, data, content, preservation, and submission policies for repositories, in addition to two OA policy statements regarding minimum and optimum recommendations.

This database allows users to browse and search repositories, which can then be selected, and articles and data can be accessed from the repository directly. As a repository database, much of the content on the site is geared toward the support of repositories and OA standards.

Collection : 5,768 repositories

Other Services : OpenDOAR offers a variety of additional services. Given the nature of the platform, services are primarily aimed at repositories and institutions, and there is a marked focus on OA in general. Sherpa services are OA archiving tools for authors and institutions.

They also offer various resources for OA support and compliance regarding standards and policies. The publication router matches publications and publishers with appropriate repositories.

There are also services and resources from JISC for repositories for cost management, discoverability, research impact, and interoperability, including ORCID consortium membership information. Additionally, a repository self-assessment tool is available for members.

Advanced Search Options : Name, organization name, repository type, software name, content type, subject, country, region

9. Bielefeld Academic Search Engine

The Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) is operated by the Bielefeld University Library in Germany, and it offers more than 240 million documents from more than 8,000 sources. Sixty percent of its content is OA, and you can filter your search accordingly.

BASE has rigorous inclusion requirements for content providers regarding quality and relevance, and they maintain a list of content providers for the sake of transparency, which can be easily found on their website. BASE has a fairly elegant interface. Search results can be organized by author, title, or date.

From the search results, items can be selected and exported, added to favorites, emailed, and searched in Google Scholar. There are basic and advanced search features, with the advanced search offering numerous options for refining search criteria. There is also a feature on the website that saves recent searches without additional steps from the user.

Collection : 276,019,066 documents; 9,286 content providers

Advanced Search Options : Author, subject, year, content provider, language, document type, access, terms of reuse

10. Digital Library of the Commons Repository

Run by Indiana University, the Digital Library of the Commons (DLC) Repository is a multidisciplinary journal repository that allows users to access thousands of free and OA articles from around the world. You can browse by document type, date, author, title, and more or search for keywords relevant to your topic.

DCL also offers the Comprehensive Bibliography of the Commons, an image database, and a keyword thesaurus for enhanced search parameters. The repository includes books, book chapters, conference papers, journal articles, surveys, theses and dissertations, and working papers. DCL advanced search features drop-down menus of search types with built-in Boolean search options.

Searches can be sorted by relevance, title, date, or submission date in ascending or descending order. Abstracts are included in selected search results, with access to full texts available, and citations can be exported from the same page. Additionally, the image database search includes tips for better search results.

Collection : 10,784

Advanced Search Options : Author, date, title, subject, sector, region, conference

11. CIA World Factbook

The CIA World Factbook is a little different from the other resources on this list in that it is not an online journal directory or repository. It is, however, a useful free online research database for academics in a variety of disciplines.

All the information is free to access, and it provides facts about every country in the world, which are organized by category and include information about history, geography, transportation, and much more. The World Factbook can be searched by country or region, and there is also information about the world's oceans.

This site contains resources related to the CIA as an organization rather than being a scientific journal database specifically. The site has a user interface that is easy to navigate. The site also provides a section for updates regarding changes to what information is available and how it is organized, making it easier to interact with the information you are searching for.

Collection : 266 countries

12. Paperity

Paperity boasts its status as the "first multidisciplinary aggregator of OA journals and papers." Their focus is on helping you avoid paywalls while connecting you to authoritative research. In addition to providing readers with easy access to thousands of journals, Paperity seeks to help authors reach their audiences and help journals increase their exposure to boost readership.

Paperity has journal articles for every discipline, and the database offers more than a dozen advanced search options, including the length of the paper and the number of authors. There is even an option to include, exclude, or exclusively search gray papers.

Paperity is available for mobile, with both a mobile site and the Paperity Reader, an app that is available for both Android and Apple users. The database is also available on social media. You can interact with Paperity via Twitter and Facebook, and links to their social media are available on their homepage, including their Twitter feed.

Collection : 8,837,396

Advanced Search Options : Title, abstract, journal title, journal ISSN, publisher, year of publication, number of characters, number of authors, DOI, author, affiliation, language, country, region, continent, gray papers

13. dblp Computer Science Bibliography

The dblp Computer Science Bibliography is an online index of major computer science publications. dblp was founded in 1993, though until 2010 it was a university-specific database at the University of Trier in Germany. It is currently maintained by the Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz Center for Informatics.

Although it provides access to both OA articles and those behind a paywall, you can limit your search to only OA articles. The site indexes more than three million publications, making it an invaluable resource in the world of computer science. dblp entries are color-coded based on the type of item.

dblp has an extensive FAQ section, so questions that might arise about topics like the database itself, navigating the website, or the data on dblp, in addition to several other topics, are likely to be answered. The website also hosts a blog and has a section devoted to website statistics.

Collection : 5,884,702

14. EconBiz

EconBiz is a great resource for economic and business studies. A service of the Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, it offers access to full texts online, with the option of searching for OA material only. Their literature search is performed across multiple international databases.

EconBiz has an incredibly useful research skills section, with resources such as Guided Walk, a service to help students and researchers navigate searches, evaluate sources, and correctly cite references; the Research Guide EconDesk, a help desk to answer specific questions and provide advice to aid in literature searches; and the Academic Career Kit for what they refer to as Early Career Researchers.

Other helpful resources include personal literature lists, a calendar of events for relevant calls for papers, conferences, and workshops, and an economics terminology thesaurus to help in finding keywords for searches. To stay up-to-date with EconBiz, you can sign up for their newsletter.

Collection : 1,075,219

Advanced Search Options : Title, subject, author, institution, ISBN/ISSN, journal, publisher, language, OA only

15. BioMed Central

BioMed Central provides OA research from more than 300 peer-reviewed journals. While originally focused on resources related to the physical sciences, math, and engineering, BioMed Central has branched out to include journals that cover a broader range of disciplines, with the aim of providing a single platform that provides OA articles for a variety of research needs. You can browse these journals by subject or title, or you can search all articles for your required keyword.

BioMed Central has a commitment to peer-reviewed sources and to the peer review process itself, continually seeking to help and improve the peer review process. They're "committed to maintaining high standards through full and stringent peer review."

Additionally, the website includes resources to assist and support editors as part of their commitment to providing high-quality, peer-reviewed OA articles.

Collection : 507,212

Other Services : BMC administers the International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number (ISRCTN) registry. While initially designed for registering clinical trials, since its creation in 2000, the registry has broadened its scope to include other health studies as well.

The registry is recognized by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, as well as the World Health Organization (WHO), and it meets the requirements established by the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform.

The study records included in the registry are all searchable and free to access. The ISRCTN registry "supports transparency in clinical research, helps reduce selective reporting of results and ensures an unbiased and complete evidence base."

Advanced Search Options : Author, title, journal, list

A multidisciplinary search engine, JURN provides links to various scholarly websites, articles, and journals that are free to access or OA. Covering the fields of the arts, humanities, business, law, nature, science, and medicine, JURN has indexed almost 5,000 repositories to help you find exactly what you're looking for.

Search features are enhanced by Google, but searches are filtered through their index of repositories. JURN seeks to reach a wide audience, with their search engine tailored to researchers from "university lecturers and students seeking a strong search tool for OA content" and "advanced and ambitious students, age 14-18" to "amateur historians and biographers" and "unemployed and retired lecturers."

That being said, JURN is very upfront about its limitations. They admit to not being a good resource for educational studies, social studies, or psychology, and conference archives are generally not included due to frequently unstable URLs.

Collection : 5,064 indexed journals

Other Services : JURN has a browser add-on called UserScript. This add-on allows users to integrate the JURN database directly into Google Search. When performing a search through Google, the add-on creates a link that sends the search directly to JURN CSE. JURN CSE is a search service that is hosted by Google.

Clicking the link from the Google Search bar will run your search through the JURN database from the Google homepage. There is also an interface for a DuckDuckGo search box; while this search engine has an emphasis on user privacy, for smaller sites that may be indexed by JURN, DuckDuckGo may not provide the same depth of results.

Advanced Search Options : Google search modifiers

Dryad is a digital repository of curated, OA scientific research data. Launched in 2009, it is run by a not-for-profit membership organization, with a community of institutional and publisher members for whom their services have been designed. Members include institutions such as Stanford, UCLA, and Yale, as well as publishers like Oxford University Press and Wiley.

Dryad aims to "promote a world where research data is openly available, integrated with the scholarly literature, and routinely reused to create knowledge." It is free to access for the search and discovery of data. Their user experience is geared toward easy self-depositing, supports Creative Commons licensing, and provides DOIs for all their content.

Note that there is a publishing charge associated if you wish to publish your data in Dryad. When searching datasets, they are accompanied by author information and abstracts for the associated studies, and citation information is provided for easy attribution.

Collection : 44,458

Advanced Search Options : No

Run by the British Library, the E-Theses Online Service (EThOS) allows you to search over 500,000 doctoral theses in a variety of disciplines. All of the doctoral theses available on EThOS have been awarded by higher education institutions in the United Kingdom.

Although some full texts are behind paywalls, you can limit your search to items available for immediate download, either directly through EThOS or through an institution's website. More than half of the records in the database provide access to full-text theses.

EThOS notes that they do not hold all records for all institutions, but they strive to index as many doctoral theses as possible, and the database is constantly expanding, with approximately 3,000 new records added and 2,000 new full-text theses available every month. The availability of full-text theses is dependent on multiple factors, including their availability in the institutional repository and the level of repository development.

Collection : 500,000+

Advanced Search Options : Abstract, author's first name, author's last name, awarding body, current institution, EThOS ID, year, language, qualifications, research supervisor, sponsor/funder, keyword, title

PubMed is a research platform well-known in the fields of science and medicine. It was created and developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the National Library of Medicine (NLM). It has been available since 1996 and offers access to "more than 33 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books."

While PubMed does not provide full-text articles directly, and many full-text articles may be behind paywalls or require subscriptions to access them, when articles are available from free sources, such as through PubMed Central (PMC), those links are provided with the citations and abstracts that PubMed does provide.

PMC, which was established in 2000 by the NLM, is a free full-text archive that includes more than 6,000,000 records. PubMed records link directly to corresponding PMC results. PMC content is provided by publishers and other content owners, digitization projects, and authors directly.

Collection : 33,000,000+

Advanced Search Options : Author's first name, author's last name, identifier, corporation, date completed, date created, date entered, date modified, date published, MeSH, book, conflict of interest statement, EC/RN number, editor, filter, grant number, page number, pharmacological action, volume, publication type, publisher, secondary source ID, text, title, abstract, transliterated title

20. Semantic Scholar

A unique and easy-to-use resource, Semantic Scholar defines itself not just as a research database but also as a "search and discovery tool." Semantic Scholar harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to efficiently sort through millions of science-related papers based on your search terms.

Through this singular application of machine learning, Semantic Scholar expands search results to include topic overviews based on your search terms, with the option to create an alert for or further explore the topic. It also provides links to related topics.

In addition, search results produce "TLDR" summaries in order to provide concise overviews of articles and enhance your research by helping you to navigate quickly and easily through the available literature to find the most relevant information. According to the site, although some articles are behind paywalls, "the data [they] have for those articles is limited," so you can expect to receive mostly full-text results.

Collection : 203,379,033

Other Services : Semantic Scholar supports multiple popular browsers. Content can be accessed through both mobile and desktop versions of Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Opera.

Additionally, Semantic Scholar provides browser extensions for both Chrome and Firefox, so AI-powered scholarly search results are never more than a click away. The mobile interface includes an option for Semantic Swipe, a new way of interacting with your research results.

There are also beta features that can be accessed as part of the Beta Program, which will provide you with features that are being actively developed and require user feedback for further improvement.

Advanced Search Options : Field of study, date range, publication type, author, journal, conference, PDF

Zenodo, powered by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), was launched in 2013. Taking its name from Zenodotus, the first librarian of the ancient library of Alexandria, Zenodo is a tool "built and developed by researchers, to ensure that everyone can join in open science." Zenodo accepts all research from every discipline in any file format.

However, Zenodo also curates uploads and promotes peer-reviewed material that is available through OA. A DOI is assigned to everything that is uploaded to Zenodo, making research easily findable and citable. You can sort by keyword, title, journal, and more and download OA documents directly from the site.

While there are closed access and restricted access items in the database, the vast majority of research is OA material. Search results can be filtered by access type, making it easy to view the free articles available in the database.

Collection : 2,220,000+

Advanced Search Options : Access, file type, keywords

Check out our roundup of free research databases as a handy one-page PDF.

How to find peer-reviewed articles.

There are a lot of free scholarly articles available from various sources. The internet is a big place. So how do you go about finding peer-reviewed articles when conducting your research? It's important to make sure you are using reputable sources.

The first source of the article is the person or people who wrote it. Checking out the author can give you some initial insight into how much you can trust what you’re reading. Looking into the publication information of your sources can also indicate whether the article is reliable.

Aspects of the article, such as subject and audience, tone, and format, are other things you can look at when evaluating whether the article you're using is valid, reputable, peer-reviewed material. So, let's break that down into various components so you can assess your research to ensure that you're using quality articles and conducting solid research.

Check the Author

Peer-reviewed articles are written by experts or scholars with experience in the field or discipline they're writing about. The research in a peer-reviewed article has to pass a rigorous evaluation process, so it's a foregone conclusion that the author(s) of a peer-reviewed article should have experience or training related to that research.

When evaluating an article, take a look at the author's information. What credentials does the author have to indicate that their research has scholarly weight behind it? Finding out what type of degree the author has—and what that degree is in—can provide insight into what kind of authority the author is on the subject.

Something else that might lend credence to the author's scholarly role is their professional affiliation. A look at what organization or institution they are affiliated with can tell you a lot about their experience or expertise. Where were they trained, and who is verifying their research?

Identify Subject and Audience

The ultimate goal of a study is to answer a question. Scholarly articles are also written for scholarly audiences, especially articles that have gone through the peer review process. This means that the author is trying to reach experts, researchers, academics, and students in the field or topic the research is based on.

Think about the question the author is trying to answer by conducting this research, why, and for whom. What is the subject of the article? What question has it set out to answer? What is the purpose of finding the information? Is the purpose of the article of importance to other scholars? Is it original content?

Research should also be approached analytically. Is the methodology sound? Is the author using an analytical approach to evaluate the data that they have obtained? Are the conclusions they've reached substantiated by their data and analysis? Answering these questions can reveal a lot about the article's validity.

Format Matters

Reliable articles from peer-reviewed sources have certain format elements to be aware of. The first is an abstract. An abstract is a short summary or overview of the article. Does the article have an abstract? It's unlikely that you're reading a peer-reviewed article if it doesn't. Peer-reviewed journals will also have a word count range. If an article seems far too short or incredibly long, that may be reason to doubt it.

Another feature of reliable articles is the sections the information is divided into. Peer-reviewed research articles will have clear, concise sections that appropriately organize the information. This might include a literature review, methodology, results (in the case of research articles), and a conclusion.

One of the most important sections is the references or bibliography. This is where the researcher lists all the sources of their information. A peer-reviewed source will have a comprehensive reference section.

An article that has been written to reach an academic community will have an academic tone. The language that is used, and the way this language is used, is important to consider. If the article is riddled with grammatical errors, confusing syntax, and casual language, it almost definitely didn't make it through the peer review process.

Also consider the use of terminology. Every discipline is going to have standard terminology or jargon that can be used and understood by other academics in the discipline. The language in a peer-reviewed article is going to reflect that.

If the author is going out of their way to explain simple terms, or terms that are standard to the field or discipline, it's unlikely that the article has been peer reviewed, as this is something that the author would be asked to address during the review process.

Publication

The source of the article will be a very good indicator of the likelihood that it was peer reviewed. Where was the article published? Was it published alongside other academic articles in the same discipline? Is it a legitimate and reputable scholarly publication?

A trade publication or newspaper might be legitimate or reputable, but it is not a scholarly source, and it will not have been subject to the peer review process. Scholarly journals are the best resource for peer-reviewed articles, but it's important to remember that not all scholarly journals are peer reviewed.

It's helpful to look at a scholarly source's website, as peer-reviewed journals will have a clear indication of the peer review process. University libraries, institutional repositories, and reliable databases (and now you have a list of legit ones) can also help provide insight into whether an article comes from a peer-reviewed journal.

Common Research Mistakes to Avoid

Research is a lot of work. Even with high standards and good intentions, it's easy to make mistakes. Perhaps you searched for access to scientific journals for free and found the perfect peer-reviewed sources, but you forgot to document everything, and your references are a mess. Or, you only searched for free online articles and missed out on a ground-breaking study that was behind a paywall.

Whether your research is for a degree or to get published or to satisfy your own inquisitive nature, or all of the above, you want all that work to produce quality results. You want your research to be thorough and accurate.

To have any hope of contributing to the literature on your research topic, your results need to be high quality. You might not be able to avoid every potential mistake, but here are some that are both common and easy to avoid.

Sticking to One Source

One of the hallmarks of good research is a healthy reference section. Using a variety of sources gives you a better answer to your question. Even if all of the literature is in agreement, looking at various aspects of the topic may provide you with an entirely different picture than you would have if you looked at your research question from only one angle.

Not Documenting Every Fact

As you conduct your research, do yourself a favor and write everything down. Everything you include in your paper or article that you got from another source is going to need to be added to your references and cited.

It's important, especially if your aim is to conduct ethical, high-quality research, that all of your research has proper attribution. If you don't document as you go, you could end up making a lot of work for yourself if the information you don't write down is something that later, as you write your paper, you really need.

Using Outdated Materials

Academia is an ever-changing landscape. What was true in your academic discipline or area of research ten years ago may have since been disproven. If fifteen studies have come out since the article that you're using was published, it's more than a little likely that you're going to be basing your research on flawed or dated information.

If the information you're basing your research on isn't as up-to-date as possible, your research won't be of quality or able to stand up to any amount of scrutiny. You don't want all of your hard work to be for naught.

Relying Solely on Open Access Journals

OA is a great resource for conducting academic research. There are high-quality journal articles available through OA, and that can be very helpful for your research. But, just because you have access to free articles, that doesn't mean that there's nothing to be found behind a paywall.

Just as dismissing high-quality peer-reviewed articles because they are OA would be limiting, not exploring any paid content at all is equally short-sighted. If you're seeking to conduct thorough and comprehensive research, exploring all of your options for quality sources is going to be to your benefit.

Digging Too Deep or Not Deep Enough

Research is an art form, and it involves a delicate balance of information. If you conduct your research using only broad search terms, you won't be able to answer your research question well, or you'll find that your research provides information that is closely related to your topic but, ultimately, your findings are vague and unsubstantiated.

On the other hand, if you delve deeply into your research topic with specific searches and turn up too many sources, you might have a lot of information that is adjacent to your topic but without focus and perhaps not entirely relevant. It's important to answer your research question concisely but thoroughly.

Different Types of Scholarly Articles

Different types of scholarly articles have different purposes. An original research article, also called an empirical article, is the product of a study or an experiment. This type of article seeks to answer a question or fill a gap in the existing literature.

Research articles will have a methodology, results, and a discussion of the findings of the experiment or research and typically a conclusion.

Review articles overview the current literature and research and provide a summary of what the existing research indicates or has concluded. This type of study will have a section for the literature review, as well as a discussion of the findings of that review. Review articles will have a particularly extensive reference or bibliography section.

Theoretical articles draw on existing literature to create new theories or conclusions, or look at current theories from a different perspective, to contribute to the foundational knowledge of the field of study.

10 Tips for Navigating Journal Databases

Use the right academic journal database for your search, be that interdisciplinary or specific to your field. Or both!

If it's an option, set the search results to return only peer-reviewed sources.

Start by using search terms that are relevant to your topic without being overly specific.

Try synonyms, especially if your keywords aren't returning the desired results.

Even if you've found some good articles, try searching using different terms.

Explore the advanced search features of the database(s).

Learn to use Booleans (AND, OR, NOT) to expand or narrow your results.

Once you've gotten some good results from a more general search, try narrowing your search.

Read through abstracts when trying to find articles relevant to your research.

Keep track of your research and use citation tools. It'll make life easier when it comes time to compile your references.

7 Frequently Asked Questions

1. how do i get articles for free.

Free articles can be found through free online academic journals, OA databases, or other databases that include OA journals and articles. These resources allow you to access free papers online so you can conduct your research without getting stuck behind a paywall.

Academics don't receive payment for the articles they contribute to journals. There are often, in fact, publication fees that scholars pay in order to publish. This is one of the funding structures that allows OA journals to provide free content so that you don't have to pay fees or subscription costs to access journal articles.

2. How Do I Find Journal Articles?

Journal articles can be found in databases and institutional repositories that can be accessed at university libraries. However, online research databases that contain OA articles are the best resource for getting free access to journal articles that are available online.

Peer-reviewed journal articles are the best to use for academic research, and there are a number of databases where you can find peer-reviewed OA journal articles. Once you've found a useful article, you can look through the references for the articles the author used to conduct their research, and you can then search online databases for those articles, too.

3. How Do I Find Peer-Reviewed Articles?

Peer-reviewed articles can be found in reputable scholarly peer-reviewed journals. High-quality journals and journal articles can be found online using academic search engines and free research databases. These resources are excellent for finding OA articles, including peer-reviewed articles.

OA articles are articles that can be accessed for free. While some scholarly search engines and databases include articles that aren't peer reviewed, there are also some that provide only peer-reviewed articles, and databases that include non-peer-reviewed articles often have advanced search features that enable you to select "peer review only." The database will return results that are exclusively peer-reviewed content.

4. What Are Research Databases?

A research database is a list of journals, articles, datasets, and/or abstracts that allows you to easily search for scholarly and academic resources and conduct research online. There are databases that are interdisciplinary and cover a variety of topics.

For example, Paperity might be a great resource for a chemist as well as a linguist, and there are databases that are more specific to a certain field. So, while ERIC might be one of the best educational databases available for OA content, it's not going to be one of the best databases for finding research in the field of microbiology.

5. How Do I Find Scholarly Articles for Specific Fields?

There are interdisciplinary research databases that provide articles in a variety of fields, as well as research databases that provide articles that cater to specific disciplines. Additionally, a journal repository or index can be a helpful resource for finding articles in a specific field.

When searching an interdisciplinary database, there are frequently advanced search features that allow you to narrow the search results down so that they are specific to your field. Selecting "psychology" in the advanced search features will return psychology journal articles in your search results. You can also try databases that are specific to your field.

If you're searching for law journal articles, many law reviews are OA. If you don't know of any databases specific to history, visiting a journal repository or index and searching "history academic journals" can return a list of journals specific to history and provide you with a place to begin your research.

6. Are Peer-Reviewed Articles Really More Legitimate?

The short answer is yes, peer-reviewed articles are more legitimate resources for academic research. The peer review process provides legitimacy, as it is a rigorous review of the content of an article that is performed by scholars and academics who are experts in their field of study. The review provides an evaluation of the quality and credibility of the article.

Non-peer-reviewed articles are not subject to a review process and do not undergo the same level of scrutiny. This means that non-peer-reviewed articles are unlikely, or at least not as likely, to meet the same standards that peer-reviewed articles do.

7. Are Free Article Directories Legitimate?

Yes! As with anything, some databases are going to be better for certain requirements than others. But, a scholarly article database being free is not a reason in itself to question its legitimacy.

Free scholarly article databases can provide access to abstracts, scholarly article websites, journal repositories, and high-quality peer-reviewed journal articles. The internet has a lot of information, and it's often challenging to figure out what information is reliable.

Research databases and article directories are great resources to help you conduct your research. Our list of the best research paper websites is sure to provide you with sources that are totally legit.

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Data collection in the fight against COVID-19

Data Sharing

6 repositories to share your research data.

Dear Diary, I have been struggling with an eating disorder for the past few years. I am afraid to eat and afraid I will gain weight. The fear is unjustified as I was never overweight. I have weighed the same since I was 12 years old, and I am currently nearing my 25th birthday. Yet, when I see my reflection, I see somebody who is much larger than reality. ‍ I told my therapist that I thought I was fat. She said it was 'body dysmorphia'. She explained this as a mental health condition where a person is apprehensive about their appearance and suggested I visit a nutritionist. She also told me that this condition was associated with other anxiety disorders and eating disorders. I did not understand what she was saying as I was in denial; I had a problem, to begin with. I wanted a solution without having to address my issues. Upon visiting my nutritionist, he conducted an in-body scan and told me my body weight was dangerously low. I disagreed with him. ‍ I felt he was speaking about a different person than the person I saw in the mirror. I felt like the elephant in the room- both literally and figuratively. He then made the simple but revolutionary suggestion to keep a food diary to track what I was eating. This was a clever way for my nutritionist and me to be on the same page. By recording all my meals, drinks, and snacks, I was able to see what I was eating versus what I was supposed to be eating. Keeping a meal diary was a powerful and non-invasive way for my nutritionist to walk in my shoes for a specific time and understand my eating (and thinking) habits. No other methodology would have allowed my nutritionist to capture so much contextual and behavioural information on my eating patterns other than a daily detailed food diary. However, by using a paper and pen, I often forgot (or intentionally did not enter my food entries) as I felt guilty reading what I had eaten or that I had eaten at all. I also did not have the visual flexibility to express myself through using photos, videos, voice recordings, and screen recordings. The usage of multiple media sources would have allowed my nutritionist to observe my behaviour in real-time and gain a holistic view of my physical and emotional needs. I confessed to my therapist my deliberate dishonesty in completing the physical food diary and why I had been reluctant to participate in the exercise. My therapist then suggested to my nutritionist and me to transition to a mobile diary study. Whilst I used a physical diary (paper and pen), a mobile diary study app would have helped my nutritionist and me reach a common ground (and to be on the same page) sooner rather than later. As a millennial, I wanted to feel like journaling was as easy as Tweeting or posting a picture on Instagram. But at the same time, I wanted to know that the information I provided in a digital diary would be as safe and private as it would have been as my handwritten diary locked in my bedroom cabinet. Further, a digital food diary study platform with push notifications would have served as a constant reminder to log in my food entries as I constantly check my phone. It would have also made the task of writing a food diary less momentous by transforming my journaling into micro-journaling by allowing me to enter one bite at a time rather than the whole day's worth of meals at once. Mainly, the digital food diary could help collect the evidence that I was not the elephant in the room, but rather that the elephant in the room was my denied eating disorder. Sincerely, The elephant in the room

Why share research data?

Sharing information stimulates science. When researchers choose to make their data publicly available, they are allowing their work to contribute far beyond their original findings.

The benefits of data sharing are immense. When researchers make their data public, they increase transparency and trust in their work, they enable others to reproduce and validate their findings, and ultimately, contribute to the pace of scientific discovery by allowing others to reuse and build on top of their data.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." Isaac Newton, 1675.

While the benefits of data sharing and open science are categorical, sadly 86% of medical research data is never reused . In a 2014 survey conducted by Wiley with over 2000 researchers across different fields, found that 21% of surveyed researchers did not know where to share their data and 16% how to do so.

In a series of articles on Data Sharing we seek to break down this process for you and cover everything you need to know on how to share your research outputs.

In this first article, we will introduce essential concepts of public data and share six powerful platforms to upload and share datasets.

What is a Research Data Repository?

The best way to publish and share research data is with a research data repository. A repository is an online database that allows research data to be preserved across time and helps others find it.

Apart from archiving research data, a repository will assign a DOI to each uploaded object and provide a web page that tells what it is, how to cite it and how many times other researchers have cited or downloaded that object.

What is a DOI?

When a researcher uploads a document to an online data repository, a digital object identifier (DOI) will be assigned. A DOI is a globally unique and persistent string (e.g. 10.6084/m9.figshare.7509368.v1) that identifies your work permanently.

A data repository can assign a DOI to any document, such as spreadsheets, images or presentation, and at different levels of hierarchy, like collection images or a specific chapter in a book.

The DOI contains metadata that provides users with relevant information about an object, such as the title, author, keywords, year of publication and the URL where that document is stored.

The International DOI Foundation (IDF) developed and introduced the DOI in 2000. Registration Agencies, a federation of independent organizations, register DOIs and provide the necessary infrastructure that allows researchers to declare and maintain metadata.

Key benefits of the DOI system:

A more straightforward way to track research outputs
Gives certainty to scientific work
DOI's versioning system tracks changes to work overtime
Can be assigned to any document
Enables proper indexation and citation of research outputs

Once a document has a DOI, others can easily cite it. A handy tool to convert DOI's into a citation is DOI Citation Formatter .

Six repositories to share research data

Now that we have covered the role of a DOI and a data repository, below is a list of 6 data repositories for publishing and sharing research data.

1. figshare

Figshare is an open access data repository where researchers can preserve their research outputs, such as datasets, images, and videos and make them discoverable.

Figshare allows researchers to upload any file format and assigns a digital object identifier (DOI) for citations.

Mark Hahnel launched Figshare in January 2011. Hahnel first developed the platform as a personal tool for organizing and publishing the outputs of his PhD in stem cell biology. More than 50 institutions now use this solution.

Figshare releases' The State of Open Data' every year to assess the changing academic landscape around open research.

Free accounts on Figshare can upload files of up to 5gb and get 20gb of free storage.

2. Mendeley Data

Mendeley Data is an open research data repository, where researchers can store and share their data. Datasets can be shared privately between individuals, as well as publicly with the world.

Mendeley's mission is to facilitate data sharing. In their own words, "when research data is made publicly available, science benefits:

- the findings can be verified and reproduced- the data can be reused in new ways

- discovery of relevant research is facilitated

- funders get more value from their funding investment."

Datasets uploaded to Mendeley Data go into a moderation process where they are reviewed. This ensures the content constitutes research data, is scientific, and does not contain a previously published research article.

Researchers can upload and store their work free of cost on Mendeley Data.

If appropriately used in the 21st century, data could save us from lots of failed interventions and enable us to provide evidence-based solutions towards tackling malaria globally. This is also part of what makes the ALMA scorecard generated by the African Leaders Malaria Alliance an essential tool for tracking malaria intervention globally. ‍ If we are able to know the financial resources deployed to fight malaria in an endemic country and equate it to the coverage and impact, it would be easier to strengthen accountability for malaria control and also track progress in malaria elimination across the continent of Africa and beyond.

Odinaka Kingsley Obeta

West African Lead, ALMA Youth Advisory Council/Zero Malaria Champion

There is a smarter way to do research.

Build fully customizable data capture forms, collect data wherever you are and analyze it with a few clicks — without any training required.

3. Dryad Digital Repository

Dryad is a curated general-purpose repository that makes data discoverable, freely reusable, and citable.

Most types of files can be submitted (e.g., text, spreadsheets, video, photographs, software code) including compressed archives of multiple files.

Since a guiding principle of Dryad is to make its contents freely available for research and educational use, there are no access costs for individual users or institutions. Instead, Dryad supports its operation by charging a $120US fee each time data is published.

4. Harvard Dataverse

Harvard Dataverse is an online data repository where scientists can preserve, share, cite and explore research data.

The Harvard Dataverse repository is powered by the open-source web application Dataverse, developed by Insitute of Quantitative Social Science at Harvard.

Researchers, journals and institutions may choose to install the Dataverse web application on their own server or use Harvard's installation. Harvard Dataverse is open to all scientific data from all disciplines.

Harvard Dataverse is free and has a limit of 2.5 GB per file and 10 GB per dataset.

5. Open Science Framework

OSF is a free, open-source research management and collaboration tool designed to help researchers document their project's lifecycle and archive materials. It is built and maintained by the nonprofit Center for Open Science.

Each user, project, component, and file is given a unique, persistent uniform resource locator (URL) to enable sharing and promote attribution. Projects can also be assigned digital object identifiers (DOIs) if they are made publicly available.

OSF is a free service.

Zenodo is a general-purpose open-access repository developed under the European OpenAIRE program and operated by CERN.

Zenodo was first born as the OpenAire orphan records repository, with the mission to provide open science compliance to researchers without an institutional repository, irrespective of their subject area, funder or nation.

Zenodo encourages users to early on in their research lifecycle to upload their research outputs by allowing them to be private. Once an associated paper is published, datasets are automatically made open.

Zenodo has no restriction on the file type that researchers may upload and accepts dataset of up to 50 GB.

Research data can save lives, help develop solutions and maximise our knowledge. Promoting collaboration and cooperation among a global research community is the first step to reduce the burden of wasted research.

Although the waste of research data is an alarming issue with billions of euros lost every year, the future is optimistic. The pressure to reduce the burden of wasted research is pushing journals, funders and academic institutions to make data sharing a strict requirement.

We hope with this series of articles on data sharing that we can light up the path for many researchers who are weighing the benefits of making their data open to the world.

The six research data repositories shared in this article are a practical way for researchers to preserve datasets across time and maximize the value of their work.

Cover image by Copernicus Sentinel data (2019), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IG .

References:

“Harvard Dataverse,” Harvard Dataverse, https://library.harvard.edu/services-tools/harvard-dataverse

“Recommended Data Repositories.” Nature, https://go.nature.com/2zdLYTz

“DOI Marketing Brochure,” International DOI Foundation, http://bit.ly/2KU4HsK

“Managing and sharing data: best practice for researchers.” UK Data Archive, http://bit.ly/2KJHE53

Wikipedia contributors, “Figshare,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Figshare&oldid=896290279 (accessed August 20, 2019).

Walport, M., & Brest, P. (2011). Sharing research data to improve public health. The Lancet, 377(9765), 537–539. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(10)62234-9

Foster, E. D., & Deardorff, A. (2017). Open Science Framework (OSF). Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA , 105 (2), 203–206. doi:10.5195/jmla.2017.88

Wikipedia contributors, "Zenodo," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zenodo&oldid=907771739 (accessed August 20, 2019).

Wikipedia contributors, "Dryad (repository)," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dryad_(repository)&oldid=879494242 (accessed August 20, 2019).

“How and Why Researchers Share Data (and Why They don't),” The Wiley Network, Liz Ferguson , http://bit.ly/31TzVHs

“Frequently Asked Questions,” Mendeley Data, https://data.mendeley.com/faq

Dear Digital Diary, ‍ I realized that there is an unquestionable comfort in being misunderstood. For to be understood, one must peel off all the emotional layers and be exposed. This requires both vulnerability and strength. I guess by using a physical diary (a paper and a pen), I never felt like what I was saying was analyzed or judged. But I also never thought I was understood. ‍ Paper does not talk back.Using a daily digital diary has required emotional strength. It has required the need to trust and the need to provide information to be helped and understood. Using a daily diary has needed less time and effort than a physical diary as I am prompted to interact through mobile notifications. I also no longer relay information from memory, but rather the medical or personal insights I enter are real-time behaviours and experiences. ‍ The interaction is more organic. I also must confess this technology has allowed me to see patterns in my behaviour that I would have otherwise never noticed. I trust that the data I enter is safe as it is password protected. I also trust that I am safe because my doctor and nutritionist can view my records in real-time. ‍ Also, with the data entered being more objective and diverse through pictures and voice recordings, my treatment plan has been better suited to my needs. Sincerely, No more elephants in this room

Diego Menchaca

Diego is the founder and CEO of Teamscope. He started Teamscope from a scribble on a table. It instantly became his passion project and a vehicle into the unknown. Diego is originally from Chile and lives in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

Harvard Dataverse

Harvard Dataverse is an online data repository where you can share, preserve, cite, explore, and analyze research data. It is open to all researchers, both inside and out of the Harvard community.

Harvard Dataverse provides access to a rich array of datasets to support your research. It offers advanced searching and text mining in over 2,000 dataverses, 75,000 datasets, and 350,000+ files, representing institutions, groups, and individuals at Harvard and beyond.

Explore Harvard Dataverse

The Harvard Dataverse repository runs on the open-source web application Dataverse , developed at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science . Dataverse helps make your data available to others, and allows you to replicate others' work more easily. Researchers, journals, data authors, publishers, data distributors, and affiliated institutions all receive academic credit and web visibility.

Why Create a Personal Dataverse?

Easy set up
Display your data on your personal website
Brand it uniquely as your research program
Makes your data more discoverable to the research community
Satisfies data management plans

Terms to know

A Dataverse repository is the software installation, which then hosts multiple virtual archives called dataverses .
Each dataverse contains datasets, and each dataset contains descriptive metadata and data files (including documentation and code that accompany the data).
As an organizing method, dataverses may also contain other dataverses.

Related Services and Tools

Research data services, qualitative research support.

Recommended Repositories

All data, software and code underlying reported findings should be deposited in appropriate public repositories, unless already provided as part of the article. Repositories may be either subject-specific repositories that accept specific types of structured data and/or software, or cross-disciplinary generalist repositories that accept multiple data and/or software types.

If field-specific standards for data or software deposition exist, PLOS requires authors to comply with these standards. Authors should select repositories appropriate to their field of study (for example, ArrayExpress or GEO for microarray data; GenBank, EMBL, or DDBJ for gene sequences). PLOS has identified a set of established repositories, listed below, that are recognized and trusted within their respective communities. PLOS does not dictate repository selection for the data availability policy.

For further information on environmental and biomedical science repositories and field standards, we suggest utilizing FAIRsharing . Additionally, the Registry of Research Data Repositories ( Re3Data ) is a full scale resource of registered data repositories across subject areas. Both FAIRsharing and Re3Data provide information on an array of criteria to help researchers identify the repositories most suitable for their needs (e.g., licensing, certificates and standards, policy, etc.).

If no specialized community-endorsed public repository exists, institutional repositories that use open licenses permitting free and unrestricted use or public domain, and that adhere to best practices pertaining to responsible sharing, sustainable digital preservation, proper citation, and openness are also suitable for deposition.

If authors use repositories with stated licensing policies, the policies should not be more restrictive than the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license .

Cross-disciplinary repositories

Dryad Digital Repository
Harvard Dataverse Network
Network Data Exchange (NDEx)
Open Science Framework

Repositories by type

Biochemistry.

*Data entered in the STRENDA DB submission form are automatically checked for compliance and receive a fact sheet PDF with warnings for any missing information.

Biomedical Sciences

Marine sciences.

SEA scieNtific Open data Edition (SEANOE)

Model Organisms

Neuroscience.

Functional Connectomes Project International Neuroimaging Data-Sharing Initiative (FCP/INDI)
German Neuroinformatics Node/G-Node (GIN)
NeuroMorpho.org

Physical Sciences

Social sciences.

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
Qualitative Data Repository
UK Data Service

Structural Databases

Taxonomic & species diversity, unstructured and/or large data.

PLOS would like to thank the Open Access Nature Publishing Group journal, Scientific Data , for their own list of recommended repositories .

Repository Criteria

The list of repositories above is not exhaustive and PLOS encourages the use of any repository that meet the following criteria:

Dataset submissions should be open to all researchers whose research fits the scientific scope of the repository. PLOS’ list does not include repositories that place geographical or affiliation restrictions on submission of datasets.

Repositories must assign a stable persistent identifier (PID) for each dataset at publication, such as a digital object identifier (DOI) or an accession number.

Repositories must provide the option for data to be available under CC0 or CC BY licenses (or equivalents that are no less restrictive). Specifically, there must be no restrictions on derivative works or commercial use.
Repositories should make datasets available to any interested readers at no cost, and with no registration requirements that unnecessarily restrict access to data. PLOS will not recommend repositories that charge readers access fees or subscription fees.
Repositories must have a long-term data management plan (including funding) to ensure that datasets are maintained for the foreseeable future.
Repositories should demonstrate acceptance and usage within the relevant research community, for example, via use of the repository for data deposition for multiple published articles.
Repositories should have an entry in FAIRsharing.org to allow it to be linked to the PLOS entry .

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Jan 23, 2024

How to build a UX research repository (that people actually use)

Extend the shelf life of your research and set your team up for long-term success with a robust research repository. Here’s how to build yours from scratch.

Ella Webber

Every UX research report was once a mountain of raw, unstructured data. User research repositories help collate that data, disseminate insights, democratize research, and spread the value of user research throughout your organization.

However, building (and maintaining) an accessible user research repository is no simple task. Getting people to use it is a whole other ball game.

In this guide, we’ll break down the specifics of user research repositories, some best practices and the benefits of building your own research library, plus how to get started, and our favorite examples of robust research repositories.

Fill your research repository with critical user insights

Drive business success and make informed decisions with Maze to extract valuable insights from user research

What is a research repository in UX research?

A user research repository is a centralized database which includes all your user research data, UX research reports , and artifacts. Different teams—like design, product, sales, and marketing—can find insights from past projects to contextualize present scenarios and make informed decisions.

Storing all your research data in a single place ensures every team has access to user insights and can use them to make research-driven decisions. Typically maintained by a research operations team, a well-structured research repository is an important step toward breaking down silos and democratizing user research for the entire organization.

If you’re looking to improve research maturity across your organization and start scaling UX research , building a watertight user research repository is your first step.

What’s included in a research repository?

Building a UX research repository can be challenging. Between compiling all the data, creating a collaborative space, and making it easily accessible to the teams who need it, you might be struggling to identify a start point.

Here’s a checklist of all the essentials to streamline the setup:

✅ Mission and vision ✅ Research roadmap ✅ Key methodologies ✅ Tools and templates ✅ Research findings ✅ Raw data and artifacts

Mission and vision

Whether you have a dedicated user research team or involve multiple departments in the UX research process , you need a clear mission and vision statement to create a shared purpose and foster collaboration. Not only should you include your wider UX research strategy and vision, but a ‘North Star’ for your repository, too.

For example, the mission statement for your repository could be, “Streamline our UX design process and promote informed decision-making with a centralized hub of user feedback and insights.”

Research roadmap

A clear UX roadmap makes it easy to prioritize your research efforts and seamlessly organize your repository. It analyzes your objectives and outlines all upcoming projects in a given timeline. You can use this roadmap to catalog your previous research campaigns and plan ahead .

Key methodologies

You should also list all the research methods you follow to create repeatable success. You can save SOPs for different methodologies to minimize the scope of error and set your team members up for success. Mia Mishek , UX Research Operations Program Manager at Pax8 , explains:

“Every repository should include common documents related to the research at hand, such as a brief, moderation guide/test script, and readout. Having all the documents easily accessible allows others to cross-reference while consuming research and use past research as a jumping-off point for further research.”

Tools and templates

Create a list of collaboration and product management tools for different steps in the product research process , such as usability testing , interviews, note-taking, data analysis, and more. Outline these and don’t forget to give quick access links to all your UX research tools .

Outlining instructions and key templates for specific research methods or analysis techniques can be useful. Consider including any tried-and-tested question repositories or best practices.

Research findings

Your repository should include a set of findings from every study. While you can add the final reports for all projects, it’s also a good practice to add quick takeaways and tags to make your collection easily searchable.

If you’ve conducted different types of analysis, it’s worth linking these here, too. Whether that’s a photo of your thematic analysis workshop, a walkthrough video of your results, or a link to digital affinity diagram.

Raw data and artifacts

Alongside research reports, you can store all the raw data from each study, like user interview recordings and transcriptions. Your team members can revisit this data to plan upcoming projects effectively or connect the dots between past and present insights.

Depending on how you store this, you may want to consider keeping piles of raw data in a ‘view only’ or locked area of the repository, to avoid risk of accidental tampering or deletion.

What are the benefits of a research repository?

User research is an ongoing process. The trickiest part for most teams when pursuing continuous research is breaking down silos and establishing a democratized approach to prevent wasteful overlap, unnecessary effort, and a lack of knowledge-sharing.

A good research repository fosters a culture of collaboration and supports user-centric design through collectively prioritizing and understanding your users.

Here are a few core benefits of building a user research repository:

Quickly access user research data

An easily searchable UX research repository makes it easy to filter through a mountain of data and find specific insights without pouring hours into it. Mia emphasizes the importance of making the information easily accessible:

“You should be able to go into the repository, understand what research has been done on X topic, and get the information you’re after. If you need someone else to walk you through the repository, or if there’s missing information, then it’s not doing its job.”

By creating a self-serve database, you can make all the data accessible to everyone and save time spent on reviewing prior research to feed existing efforts.

Inspire ideas and prioritize future research

A research repository can also help in identifying knowledge gaps in your existing research and highlight topics worth further exploration. Analyzing your past data can spark ideas for innovative features and guide your research efforts.

Different teams can utilize a research repository to help guide the product roadmap on areas that still need to be explored in the app, or areas that need to be revisited.

Mia Mishek , UX Research Operations Program Leader at Pax8

Build a shared knowledge library

One crucial advantage of a repository is that it helps democratize user research. Not only does it highlight the value of research and showcase the efforts of your product and research teams, but by centralizing research findings, you’re making it easier for everyone to make data-informed, user-centric decisions.

A research repository also provides versatility and other use cases to your research insights—from product managers to sales leaders, all stakeholders can access user insights for making research-driven decisions across the organization. Whether that’s informing a sales pitch, product roadmap, or business strategy; there’s endless applications for UX research.

This practice of knowledge-sharing and democratizing user insights is a big step in building a truly user-centered approach to product development.

Contextualize new data with past evidence

Your repository records all the raw data from past projects, making it easier to compare and contrast new findings with previous user research. This data also allows researchers to develop more nuanced reports by connecting the dots between present and past data.

Mia explains how these repositories cut down on the redundant effort of trying to dig up old research data on any topic: “A repository benefits UX researchers and designers because it’s not uncommon to ask what research was done on XYZ area before conducting more research. No one wants to do reductive work, so without a repository, it’s easy to forget past research on similar topics.”

What’s more, research libraries avoid the same research being repeated; instead allowing as many people as possible to benefit from the research, while minimizing the resources and time used.

4 Best research repository tools and templates

You don’t need a specialized tool to create a user research repository. A well-organized, shared Google Drive or Notion teamspace with detailed documentation can be just as effective. However, if you can, a dedicated tool is going to make your life a lot easier.

Here are four research repository tools to consider for storing existing and new research insights on, and working cross-functionally with multiple teams.

1. Confluence

Confluence is a team workspace tool by Atlassian that streamlines remote work. You can use this platform to create research docs from scratch, share them with your team, and save them for future reference. Plus, the tool lets you design wikis for each research study to organize everything—raw data, findings, and reports—in a structured manner.

You also get a centralized space to store data and docs from extra accounts, so multiple people can contribute to and access your repository.

Condens is a centralized UX research and analysis platform for storing, structuring, and analyzing user research data–and sharing those insights across your organization. You can collaborate on data analysis, create pattern recognition, and create artifacts for comprehensive outcomes.

With a detailed research repository guide to help you on your way, it's a great tool for teams of any size. Plus, you can also embed live Maze reports, alongside other UX research and analysis tools.

3. Dovetail

Dovetail is a user research platform for collecting, analyzing, and storing research projects. You can save and retrieve all documents from a single database, while tags, labels, and descriptions also simplify the task of cataloging past data.

The platform gives you a strong search function to quickly find any file or data from the entire hub. You can also use multiple templates to migrate data from different platforms to Dovetail.

4. Airtable

Airtable is a low-code tool for building apps that enables you to create a custom database for your UX research projects. It’s ideal for product teams looking to set up the entire repository from scratch because you need to configure everything independently.

You get a high degree of flexibility to integrate different data sources, design a customized interface, and access data in dynamic views. What’s more, you can build an interactive relational database to request resources from others and stay on top of the status of existing work.

Here’s a research repository database to get started.

Creating a UX research repository: 5 Best practices

Designing a bespoke repository to organize your research requires careful planning, a thorough setup workflow, and continuous maintenance. But once it’s ready, you’ll wonder how your product team survived without it. To get you started, here’s our five best practices to implement this process effectively and kickstart your repository.

1. Define clear objectives for your repository

Start by outlining what you want to achieve with a shared research library. You might want to standardize research methodologies across the board or build alignment between multiple teams to create more consistent outputs.

This goal-setting exercise gives all team members a purpose to pursue in upcoming projects. When they know what success looks like, they can strategically plan research questions and choose analysis methods.

Knowing your objectives will also help shortlist the best research and usability testing tools . You can invest in a good platform by evaluating a few core capabilities needed to achieve your goals (more on that shortly).

2. Create a structure and define taxonomy

You can structure your UX repository as a database with multiple fields. For example, here are a few fields to easily categorize responses when documenting user experience research:

Key insights
User quotes
Criticality
Sources of knowledge
Possible solutions that were considered

Besides creating a structure to document a research study, you also need a well-defined taxonomy to help people find information. Defining your research taxonomy will help you categorize information effectively and design consistent naming conventions.

For example, you can create a set of predefined categories for every research study like:

Focus country: USA, Australia, Canada, France
Collected feedback: Feature request, feature enhancement, bugs
Methodology: Usability testing, user interview, survey
User journey stage: Before activation, power user, after renewal

💡 Less jargon, more alignment

Involve multiple stakeholders when defining the terminology for your library, and check it aligns with any internal Style Guides or glossaries. This ensures alignment from the outset, and makes it easy for everyone to filter results and find what they need.

3. Distribute knowledge through atomic research

Atomic research is an approach to UX research that prioritizes user research data organization. It proposes that you conduct research so that every piece of the project becomes easily reusable and accessible to all stakeholders.

According to the atomic research approach , you need to consider four components to organize your repository:

Experiments (We did this): Explain the research methodology and the steps you followed in conducting the study
Facts (We saw this): Document the main findings evident from the data gathered in the study
Insights (Which made us think): Capture the key insights extracted from analyzing the research data
Opportunities (So we did that): List the decisions and action items resulting from the research analysis

Using atomic research, you can create nuggets to organize information in your repository.

Nuggets are the smallest unit of information containing one specific insight, like a user quote, data point, or observation. The different types of nuggets to categorize your research data include observations , evidence , and tags . By breaking down a vast study into smaller nuggets, you can make your repository informative at a glance. You can use your defined taxonomy to label these nuggets.

4. Identify the creators and consumers in your team

Before outlining your repository’s structure, you need to define workflows for creating, reviewing, and maintaining the library. Spend some time defining who will:

Own the setup process and create the overall guidelines
Access past documents and add contributions consistently
Maintain the documents for easy accessibility
Only need to access customer insights

Assigning these roles makes it easy to estimate your team's bandwidth for building and maintaining such a massive library. You can also manage permissions in your repository platform to give everyone access to relevant materials and protect confidential resources.

Mia explains why this is important to make your repository more meaningful for end-users:

“You need to keep in mind the JTBD (jobs to be done) framework when building a repository. What do the folks accessing your repository need to do? Who are those people? You need to build your repository with the purpose of those distinct users.”

5. Shortlist and finalize tools based on your goals

When evaluating different research repository tools, consider your requirements and compare different platforms against the essential features you need for this repository. If you’re creating one for the first time, it’s okay to create an experimental setup to understand the impact.

Here are a few key factors to consider when shortlisting research repository tools:

Ease of setup and use: Choose a platform with a gentle learning curve, especially if you have a big team with multiple members. A quick setup and user-friendly interface can maximize adoption and make your repository more accessible.
Collaboration capabilities: A good repository lets you interact with different team members through comments, chat boxes, or tags. You can also manage permissions and set up different roles to share relevant research with specific stakeholders and team members .
Tagging and searchability: Your repository is only as good as its ability to show precise search results for any keyword. Consider the ease of labeling new information and test the search function to check the accuracy of the results.
Export and integrations: You’ll need to export some data or streamline your entire research ops setup by integrating different tools. So, evaluate each tool’s integration capabilities and the options to export information.

Plus, your ideal tool might be a combination of tools. For example, Steven Zhang , former Senior Software Engineer at Airtable, used a combination of Gong and Airtable when first building a UX research repository . It’s about considering your needs and finding what works for your team.

Democratize user research in your organization

A UX research repository gives you easy access to insights from past projects, and enables you to map new insights to old findings for a more nuanced understanding of your users.

More importantly, building a single source of truth for your entire organization means everyone on your team can access research data to inform their projects.

Different teams can use this data to make strategic design decisions, iterate product messaging, or deliver meaningful customer support.

Sound good? That’s what we thought—build your repository today to evangelize and democratize UX research in your organization.

Need a seamless solution to collect meaningful research insights?

Maze helps you collect and analyze research to find purposeful data for your product roadmap

Frequently asked questions about UX research repository

How do I create a user research repository?

You can create a user research repository with these best practices:

Define clear objectives for your repository
Create a structure and define taxonomy
Distribute knowledge through atomic research
Identify the creators and consumers in your team
Shortlist and finalize tools based on your goals

What makes a good research repository?

A good research repository tells the team's mission and vision for using research. It's also easily searchable with relevant tags and labels to categorize documents, and includes tools, templates, and other resources for better adoption.

What’s the purpose of a research repository?

A research repository aims to make your UX research accessible to everyone. It democratizes research operations and fosters knowledge-sharing, giving everyone on your team access to critical insights and firsthand user feedback.

Redirect Notice

Repositories for Sharing Scientific Data

In general, NIH does not endorse or require sharing data in any particular repository, although some initiatives and funding opportunities will have individual requirements. Overall, NIH encourages researchers to select the repository that is most appropriate for their data type and discipline. See Selecting a Data Repository .

Browse through this listing of NIH-supported repositories to learn more about some places to share scientific data. Note that this list is not exhaustive. Select the link provided in the “Data Submission Policy” column to find data submission instructions for each repository.

In addition, NIH provides a listing of generalist repositories that accept all data types .

NIH-supported Scientific Data Repositories*

What is a research repository, and why do you need one?

Last updated

31 January 2024

Reviewed by

Miroslav Damyanov

Without one organized source of truth, research can be left in silos, making it incomplete, redundant, and useless when it comes to gaining actionable insights.

A research repository can act as one cohesive place where teams can collate research in meaningful ways. This helps streamline the research process and ensures the insights gathered make a real difference.

What is a research repository?

A research repository acts as a centralized database where information is gathered, stored, analyzed, and archived in one organized space.

In this single source of truth, raw data, documents, reports, observations, and insights can be viewed, managed, and analyzed. This allows teams to organize raw data into themes, gather actionable insights, and share those insights with key stakeholders.

Ultimately, the research repository can make the research you gain much more valuable to the wider organization.

Why do you need a research repository?

Information gathered through the research process can be disparate, challenging to organize, and difficult to obtain actionable insights from.

Some of the most common challenges researchers face include the following:

Information being collected in silos

No single source of truth

Research being conducted multiple times unnecessarily

No seamless way to share research with the wider team

Reports get lost and go unread

Without a way to store information effectively, it can become disparate and inconclusive, lacking utility. This can lead to research being completed by different teams without new insights being gathered.

A research repository can streamline the information gathered to address those key issues, improve processes, and boost efficiency. Among other things, an effective research repository can:

Optimize processes: it can ensure the process of storing, searching, and sharing information is streamlined and optimized across teams.

Minimize redundant research: when all information is stored in one accessible place for all relevant team members, the chances of research being repeated are significantly reduced.

Boost insights: having one source of truth boosts the chances of being able to properly analyze all the research that has been conducted and draw actionable insights from it.

Provide comprehensive data: there’s less risk of gaps in the data when it can be easily viewed and understood. The overall research is also likely to be more comprehensive.

Increase collaboration: given that information can be more easily shared and understood, there’s a higher likelihood of better collaboration and positive actions across the business.

What to include in a research repository

Including the right things in your research repository from the start can help ensure that it provides maximum benefit for your team.

Here are some of the things that should be included in a research repository:

An overall structure

There are many ways to organize the data you collect. To organize it in a way that’s valuable for your organization, you’ll need an overall structure that aligns with your goals.

You might wish to organize projects by research type, project, department, or when the research was completed. This will help you better understand the research you’re looking at and find it quickly.

Including information about the research—such as authors, titles, keywords, a description, and dates—can make searching through raw data much faster and make the organization process more efficient.

All key data and information

It’s essential to include all of the key data you’ve gathered in the repository, including supplementary materials. This prevents information gaps, and stakeholders can easily stay informed. You’ll need to include the following information, if relevant:

Research and journey maps

Tools and templates (such as discussion guides, email invitations, consent forms, and participant tracking)

Raw data and artifacts (such as videos, CSV files, and transcripts)

Research findings and insights in various formats (including reports, desks, maps, images, and tables)

Version control

It’s important to use a system that has version control. This ensures the changes (including updates and edits) made by various team members can be viewed and reversed if needed.

What makes a good research repository?

The following key elements make up a good research repository that’s useful for your team:

Access: all key stakeholders should be able to access the repository to ensure there’s an effective flow of information.

Actionable insights: a well-organized research repository should help you get from raw data to actionable insights faster.

Effective searchability : searching through large amounts of research can be very time-consuming. To save time, maximize search and discoverability by clearly labeling and indexing information.

Accuracy: the research in the repository must be accurately completed and organized so that it can be acted on with confidence.

Security: when dealing with data, it’s also important to consider security regulations. For example, any personally identifiable information (PII) must be protected. Depending on the information you gather, you may need password protection, encryption, and access control so that only those who need to read the information can access it.

How to create a research repository

Getting started with a research repository doesn’t have to be convoluted or complicated. Taking time at the beginning to set up the repository in an organized way can help keep processes simple further down the line.

The following six steps should simplify the process:

1. Define your goals

Before diving in, consider your organization’s goals. All research should align with these business goals, and they can help inform the repository.

As an example, your goal may be to deeply understand your customers and provide a better customer experience. Setting out this goal will help you decide what information should be collated into your research repository and how it should be organized for maximum benefit.

2. Choose a platform

When choosing a platform, consider the following:

Will it offer a single source of truth?

Is it simple to use

Is it relevant to your project?

Does it align with your business’s goals?

3. Choose an organizational method

To ensure you’ll be able to easily search for the documents, studies, and data you need, choose an organizational method that will speed up this process.

Choosing whether to organize your data by project, date, research type, or customer segment will make a big difference later on.

4. Upload all materials

Once you have chosen the platform and organization method, it’s time to upload all the research materials you have gathered. This also means including supplementary materials and any other information that will provide a clear picture of your customers.

Keep in mind that the repository is a single source of truth. All materials that relate to the project at hand should be included.

5. Tag or label materials

Adding metadata to your materials will help ensure you can easily search for the information you need. While this process can take time (and can be tempting to skip), it will pay off in the long run.

The right labeling will help all team members access the materials they need. It will also prevent redundant research, which wastes valuable time and money.

6. Share insights

For research to be impactful, you’ll need to gather actionable insights. It’s simpler to spot trends, see themes, and recognize patterns when using a repository. These insights can be shared with key stakeholders for data-driven decision-making and positive action within the organization.

Different types of research repositories

There are many different types of research repositories used across organizations. Here are some of them:

Data repositories: these are used to store large datasets to help organizations deeply understand their customers and other information.

Project repositories: data and information related to a specific project may be stored in a project-specific repository. This can help users understand what is and isn’t related to a project.

Government repositories: research funded by governments or public resources may be stored in government repositories. This data is often publicly available to promote transparent information sharing.

Thesis repositories: academic repositories can store information relevant to theses. This allows the information to be made available to the general public.

Institutional repositories: some organizations and institutions, such as universities, hospitals, and other companies, have repositories to store all relevant information related to the organization.

Build your research repository in Dovetail

With Dovetail, building an insights hub is simple. It functions as a single source of truth where research can be gathered, stored, and analyzed in a streamlined way.

1. Get started with Dovetail

Dovetail is a scalable platform that helps your team easily share the insights you gather for positive actions across the business.

2. Assign a project lead

It’s helpful to have a clear project lead to create the repository. This makes it clear who is responsible and avoids duplication.

3. Create a project

To keep track of data, simply create a project. This is where you’ll upload all the necessary information.

You can create projects based on customer segments, specific products, research methods, or when the research was conducted. The project breakdown will relate back to your overall goals and mission.

4. Upload data and information

Now, you’ll need to upload all of the necessary materials. These might include data from customer interviews, sales calls, product feedback, usability testing, and more. You can also upload supplementary information.

5. Create a taxonomy

Create a taxonomy to organize the data effectively by ensuring that each piece of information will be tagged and organized.

When creating a taxonomy, consider your goals and how they relate to your customers. Ensure those tags are relevant and helpful.

6. Tag key themes

Once the taxonomy is created, tag each piece of information to ensure you can easily filter data, group themes, and spot trends and patterns.

With Dovetail, automatic clustering helps quickly sort through large amounts of information to uncover themes and highlight patterns. Sentiment analysis can also help you track positive and negative themes over time.

7. Share insights

With Dovetail, it’s simple to organize data by themes to uncover patterns and share impactful insights. You can share these insights with the wider team and key stakeholders, who can use them to make customer-informed decisions across the organization.

8. Use Dovetail as a source of truth

Use your Dovetail repository as a source of truth for new and historic data to keep data and information in one streamlined and efficient place. This will help you better understand your customers and, ultimately, deliver a better experience for them.

Get started today

Go from raw data to valuable insights with a flexible research platform

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A definitive guide to the ux research repository [2024], satvik soni, december 23, 2023, ux research repository fundamentals.

Let’s start things off with a brief overview of research repositories.

We’ll discuss what a repository is.

And we’ll discuss how it can help you.

Alternatively, you can also just sign up for a free trial of Looppanel , our ah-mazing repository tool. This way, you get a guided tour and live-action experience of how a repository works!

What is a user research repository, benefits of a user research repository, free user research repository templates, ux research repository tools, how to pick the right research repository tool, repository pitfalls to avoid.

A repository is just store of information. We call it a repository when we want to be fancy 💃.

A user research repository is a place to store research data, notes, and insights.

These can be accessed when needed, ideally by everyone in the organization.

A good repository would let teams across the organization find what they’re looking for on their own. This makes research insights more accessible to the right people at the right time.

A user research repository can start as nothing more than a Google doc.

It can also grow into a complex library of insights within entire applications that can do AI qualitative analysis, auto-organizing of notes, helping you speed up research.

The qualitative analysis dashboard from the UX research repository tool Looppanel

This article will go over all of these possibilities and help you implement the ones you choose. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves!

There are 3 key benefits of building a UX research repository.

It speeds up research ⚡
It makes collaboration easier 🤝
It prevents redundant research 🔁

⚡ UX Research repositories speed up research

UX Research projects start with a request for user insight.

The project is planned, user research methodologies chosen, participants recruited, user interviews conducted, raw data stored and analyzed, reports created and shared, and finally the data collected is archived somewhere.

A UX research repository speeds up every step of this process.

By definition, the user research repository acts as a storehouse of past insights & reports, along with an archive of the raw data to go back to. This store of historical data allows repositories to cut away requests that can be answered using data from previous projects.

Once the request does go through, past projects help plan the next ones better, often by giving the team a good starting point for what they already know about users.

Our AI repository tool Looppanel does live-note-taking during calls and summarizes transcripts with great accuracy. It frees one up from being dependent on some research assistant's schedule. This is one unique feature that other repository tools don't do btw, just pointing it out 😬.

A good repository also enables team members to bookmark key moments and take notes, ideally tying those with time-stamps to your recording & transcript of the call. We also let teams generate video clips of highlights, so they can share it with stakeholders easily (making you 5x faster at discovering insights & getting buy-in for them!)

Speed up research with UX Research repositories

Repository tools also help in qualitative analysis, with auto-organizing and affinity mapping of data .

Once that’s done, the team can collaborate on reaching insights.

And speaking of collaborations…

🤝 UX Research Repositories make collaboration easier

UX Research is a team sport. Having a user research repository allows for it to remain one.

In an ideal case, repositories should allow people outside the UXR team to contribute to the organization’s body of knowledge.

Once successfully implemented, the repository can be accessed by anyone. This makes the organization’s knowledge easier to find by those who need it the most.

Easy access to insights and data also allows for collaborative analysis.

Teams will reach diverse and unique conclusions.

Some of these will be insights that researchers could not have thought of.

Some of these will be insights other teams couldn’t have reached on their own.

Inputs from your customer success team could help your copywriters, for example. It is easier to write relevant copy if you already have a record of what the users are complaining about and what they want to hear.

Researchers can also set up frameworks that allow non-researchers to conduct their own quick research. This is amazing—the UXR team is no longer the bottleneck for conducting research! Everyone in the organization gets exposure to research.

User researchers get to see their family once in a while.

Of course this wouldn’t happen from day one and depends on the UX maturity of your organization.

Research democratization only takes place once you enter the later stages of UX maturity. A repository can help a lot with this though, by making it easy for anyone to find research info, especially non-researcher stakeholders. It's all out in the open, and stop seeming like a secret mystic ritual.

🔁 Repositories prevent redundant research

Stop redundant research with UX Research Repositories

User research piles up quickly. It’s easy to lose your work in the unrelenting jungles of Google drive and Google Sheets and email chains and Miro Boards and floppy disks and pen drives and—you get the idea.

The data and/or insights hidden away in these corners might be required by other teams eventually. When that happens, researchers can hunt for them through the jungles or conduct the research again.

Having a repository makes things easier to find and prevents you from running the same research over and over and over again. Since items are centralized and searchable, you can discover the relevant information within a couple of clicks.

Above all, it takes the guesswork out of the equation.

Your team doesn’t need to start another project with the troubling intuition that they’ve collected this data before, if only they could remember 🧐.

Some repository tools like Dovetail require you to set up a tagging taxonomy, and get everyone to tag data accurately, if you need to find stuff later. It can get very complicated.

Luckily, new-age repositories like Looppanel have Google-like search features , where you can type and question, keyword, or topic and find all the data you need within the repository.

Some teams also store participant info from previous research projects in repositories. They can then reach out to these people for future research requests. This saves the time and energy they would have spent scrambling for new participants.

Here's a repository for anyone trying to break into UX Research.

If you're just starting out with user research, you can make do a little while with DIY repositories.

They do get overwhelming and scary as information piles up, fair warning. Juggling different kinds of media, manually transcribing data, and searching for old data can be a nightmare.

And then teammate Dave could just mess up the whole thing with ugly formatting.😖

However, if budgets are non-existent and you're still figuring it out, a Notion template will do the job.

There are two User Research repository Notion templates that we are particularly fond of.

Notion’s team provides a free basic User Research template

What we like about this template:

It’s a great starting point when just getting started with repositories
It’s easy to populate and share for a single project
It offers a convenient template for an actionable summary

What can be better about this template:

As projects pile up, this template can get complicated. At that point it can have the same drawbacks as putting everything on a Drive - finding data can get tough, old research can get buried.
The search capability across projects wouldn’t be adequate for larger organizations.
This template is mostly useful post-research. You’ll have to separately compile data here after the study is done. Since the template requires effort post-research, it is not ideal for researchers who do not have the time to summarize their study or the will-power at the end of a long project.

You can get this User Research template here .

This excellent UX research template by Konstantin Escher.

This was originally posted to UX Collective. You can duplicate it and use it for your own team.

Ultimate User Research Template on Notion

This is intuitive and simple to use, even for non-researchers.
The template offers a great level of detail. You can get an overall idea that doesn’t overwhelm you. You can then dive deep into the finer data points, if you want.
Relevant data can be higher up on the page. Your busy teammates won’t appreciate learning about the research team before they can learn about the research.
As was in the previous one, the search capability across projects wouldn’t be adequate for larger organizations.
Your team should be comfortable with Notion to use this well. This is not necessarily the template’s fault, just an obstacle you’ll have to overcome.

If you’ve outgrown your DIY repository (or if you don’t want to spend time making one), there are a bunch of great repository tools available for you.

If you have a good idea of your team’s needs, deciding which tool to go for will be easier! 🫠.

Top Research Repository UX tools in 2024

You can start looking through these UX research tools first (listed in no particular order).

Looppanel - Looppanel is an AI-powered research analysis & repository tool. It's built like a research assistant—to automate all the tedious parts of qualitative research you don't have time for. It can record and transcribe calls, take live notes, organize your data & centralize everything in one place. We may be biased but apparently the cool kids of UX Research use this tool.
Dovetail - Dovetail is a manual user research analysis & repository tool. You can analyze, synthesize, summarize, and share your customer research on one platform. It requires tagging to make data searchable. It's quite complex to use, so we'd reccommend looking up simpler Dovetail alternatives.
Condens - Condens is a repository tool that's basically ‘Dovetail lite’. It has similiar workflows, with fewer features and a slightly lighter price tag.
Aurelius - Among Dovetail alternatives, Aurelius is a more old-school repository tool, for researchers to organize notes, capture insights, and analyze data.
EnjoyHQ - EnjoyHQ is a repository platform, and is more useful for storage than analysis. It has a lot of integration options.

We've extensively researched and reviewed the best Research Repository tools in 2024. Read all about it here.

Judgement Criteria

When choosing user research tools as repositories, you should review your options based on a few decision criteria.

Analysis 🧐 How will the tool help with your analyses? Some considerations include— Is there a storage limit? Can you create insights/notes on the fly? Does it offer high quality transcription? Do you have to tag data to find it later?
Ease of use✌️ Is the tool easy and intuitive to use? Or is it so complex that you need to train your team to use it?
Tech🤖 Does the tool use AI smartly? How accurate is the transcription feature (ours is 95%, best in the biz💅)? How reliable is the analysis?
Collaboration 🤝 Does the tool improve collaboration within and across teams? Does it allow real time collaboration on notes/insights? Can you share clips and reports across your organization, even if some teammates haven’t set up an account?
Cost 💰 Will it be too much of a burden on the research team’s pockets?
Privacy 🔒 Is participant data easily erasable? Is research data encrypted?
Integrations 🔌 Will the repository work with your team’s current “stack” of tools?

There’s a ton of options out there.

Researching research repositories requires a repository.

To make an even more informed decision, ask yourself and your team these questions.

Do you need a repository?

If your organization has just started basic user research, we will recommend against investing time and/or money in a repository. Build out your basic research infrastructure (such as interview templates, research roadmaps, etc.) using trial and error to see what works for you and your organization.

Spend time advocating for research internally.

If no one buys into your results, it doesn’t matter how nicely they’re cataloged.

You can also opt for a repository tool that's easy and simple enough for beginners to use.

What does your team need?

Is the cost of that tool with extensive tagging options justified? Do you have enough teammates to justify investing in an expensive and complicated repository tool? Is your organization mature enough to need collaboration between researchers and non-researchers?

Consider what will help your unique situation.

The shiniest tool available might overcomplicate your research flow.

Where will your research live?

If your team lives and breathes on Google Drive, they should get their research reports on Google Drive. If your repository doesn’t allow this, “nobody will ever, ever find it”, says Gregg Bernsetin , head of user research for Condé Nast.

Teams usually spend their time on Google Drive, Notion, Confluence, etc.

Ideally, your repository tool should integrate with them to reach your team where they are.

Pick a tool that is fun and easy enough to tempt your team to migrate.

You’ve shed blood, sweat, and tears on this research repository. Let’s see some reasons all your efforts can go to waste. Why do research repositories fail?

Sounds like a good way to end this article 🥰.

We interviewed design and research leaders to find out why 80% of repositories fail. Read the findings in our latest whitepaper here.

Lack of buy-in beforehand

Make a case for repositories in front of your organization. It would be pointless if you built or bought a repository for an organization that does not understand its benefits.

Getting buy-in would involve convincing multiple stakeholders. You would have to convince other teams of the benefits of collaborative research. Convince the product team that being actively involved in the repository will let them create a better product. Convince the marketing team that reading and adding insights will help them understand the customer better. Convince the sales team that repositories are the easiest way to identify the “pain points” people want to pay for.

A team that understands the purpose of implementing a repository across the organization will be more receptive during the onboarding process. Earning your buy-in within and across teams, therefore, can prevent the next pitfall as well.

Improper onboarding

Your team hates you for making them learn another tool.

You hate your team for not picking it up on their own.

To avoid this situation,, spending time and energy making sure everyone understands how to use the repository is always wise!

Your organization should be confident in their repository skills. That way, they’re more likely to use it when making decisions and add to it when they have interesting insights.

A team that struggles with the repository would try to figure things out for ten minutes (data not backed by research) before giving up and going back to their daily work.

Also make sure to stress the importance of participant privacy , especially for the non-researcher.

The wrong tools for the job

This one is obvious (and has been repeated all over the article).

A shiny repository tool with every conceivable feature might hurt your research work. Don’t go too big too soon if your organization is still tiny. Even a large organization just getting started with UX research will be turned off by complexity. It’s easy to fall into the role of a “librarian” if the repository doesn’t align with your workflow and team needs—you don’t want to spend more time curating your research than you do creating it!

There’s of course the other hand here. Work at a thousand person organization where they love UX research? You probably shouldn’t settle for a nice google sheet.

Pick the right tools for the job!

Role ambiguity

Someone from the research team should be accountable for the repository.

Building and maintaining the repository, answering questions related to the repository, onboarding new team members, ensuring that other teams are doing things correctly—these are just some of the tasks that go into a successful repository implementation.

If you are a UX research team of one, you’ll be accountable for all of this! (take a nap)

If your research team has more people, everyone should know what their job is. In the absence of clarity, you get confused team members stepping on each others’ toes.

You can also take cues from the teams at Google and Razorpay. Read how they built good repositories here .

In Conclusion

Implement a research repository! Your research team will thank you.

Even the most basic repositories will immediately improve your research capabilities.

It's also really important to choose the right tool.

Looppanel is a research repository tool that's built for researchers by researchers, btw. It's easy to use and helps you get to insights 5x faster. You'll love it, just trust us on this.

Try Looppanel for free, and get started on your repository.

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World Leaders in Research-Based User Experience

Research repositories for tracking ux research and growing your researchops.

October 18, 2020 2020-10-18

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Every UX team needs to organize its user research in a research repository. I first worked on a research repository in the early 1990s. The lessons I learned then still hold true today, as the UX community gets serious about managing and growing user- research programs. These efforts now fall under the umbrella term “ Research Ops ” (with “Ops” being short for “operations” ) .

Before making a repository, analyze the UX-related processes and tools used (currently or in the near future) in your organization. Consider creating a mind map of how research gets done, or even a journey map or service blueprint of how research is initiated and results are used on development teams.

wireframe with 3 columns, left menu of findings and reports; middle checkbox filters with topic, status, date; and right with a list of findings

Some important components that can be housed in a research repository include:

Infrastructure

Research team’s mission and vision communicate what the team is about, how it works, and how it hopes to work in the future. This information can help others to understand the team’s capabilities, what they can expect, and what they can request. An example mission is: The UX-research team provides user and customer research and guidance for all products, services, and systems at the organization in order to maximize usefulness, usability, efficiency, enjoyment, and support for the organization’s vision.
Descriptions of research methods help the team learn or be reminded of a process and the reasons for different research types. Method descriptions and best practices can promote consistent high-quality work and even teach a less experienced researcher.
Tools and templates for conducting and analyzing research , such as templates for test plans, protocols, reports, interview scripts, user tasks, consent forms, notetaking and tips for using remote-research or analysis tools could also be housed her

Research Planning

Strategic research plans for the organization and for individual projects — like you might see in a research roadmap — can keep researchers and the rest of the team focused on the most important areas to research as opposed to every single product feature. When stored in a research repository these are easy to find and access
Schedules make research accessible to everyone, by sharing the date, time, location, research method, and what’s being studied. Armed with this information, anyone can join or ask to join in on studies, or at least look for findings upon completion
Detailed research plans communicate that research will be happening and how. When stored in a repository they serve as a vision document to align stakeholders and the rest of the team.
Research requests enable product teams to request user research to be done. Depending on the research team’s size, mission, planning, and culture, research requests may not be available at all organizations. Research requests can give insight in the research needs at your organization and can drive UX-team growth.

Data and Insights

Research reports tell what happened in the research study. They include overarching themes, detailed findings, and sometimes recommendations.
Research insights are the detailed findings or chunks of information acquired from each research study. While findings also appear in reports, saving them as their own entities makes it easier to digest them, mark their severity , track their status, and link to specific design and development assignments in the backlog or project database. In other words, each insight is digestible and easy to see, and thus more likely to get addressed.
Recordings and transcriptions stored in the repository or, alternatively, linked from the repository, They make user data easily accessible. Summarizing and transcribing each video allows teams to search for exactly what they're looking for. (Fun historical note: In the early 1990s, when usability-testing recordings were too large to store online, my team at Lotus created a video library. Developers could check out the physical videotapes as one would a book at a library. People were so dedicated that they borrowed them to watch the tests they had missed, and sometimes we had to make extra copies of tapes to meet the demand.)
Raw notes and artifacts from research sessions are often trashed after they have been analyzed. But some teams keep the notes in case they might be useful for future analysis — for example, if a team was in a rush and focused on one area of the design at the time of the study, later it may be able to revisit the notes to glean insights related to other aspects of the design. Those notes could help inform journey maps, personas, or other user-focused artifacts.

What Is NOT Always in a Research Repository

UX-data analysis is usually done with specialized tools. The result of the analysis could be a text file (for example, for quantitative data analysis done in software such as R) or could be hosted online in a tool-specific format. If the latter, then the repository can link to the result of the analysis. For example, researchers may have conducted thematic analysis using Dovetail; the full research report can include a link to that board so team members can see the reasoning behind the findings.
A participant repository or panel is usually not stored within a research repository, even though recruiting research participants is a core function of user research. That’s because the goals and audience for the two repositories tend to be quite different. But it can be helpful for them to link to one another.

There are many other components that research teams need to track internally but that are less likely to be part of a research repository, even though they may be linked from it: user stories in a backlog, participant recruiting tools, and budget tracking for research projects.

People should be able to easily find and discover information about research. Findable and accessible information makes it possible for the team to easily be part of a research project and feel ownership about the findings. Here are some repository attributes that make it easy to use:

Supporting tags and metadata, to help people find items by the most granular topics
Searchable by keyword (e.g. for research on a certain product feature), project, team, finding, severity, status, and more
Hosted in a tool that people can easily access , use, learn and that matches the organization’s culture and mental model
Portable, so that repository elements can be easily exported to other applications or formats

Research repositories store and organize information about UX research. They collect not only methodology-related documents, but also research results at various levels of granularity (from individual findings to reports). Their purpose is to streamline the work of the research team and also to make research widely available and easy to consume throughout the organization.

For more information about the growing ResearchOps community, see https://researchops.community/ .

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Bioinformatics & Genomics Scientist

The best free Research Data Repository

I compare the most popular repository for research data: Dryad, Zenodo, FigShare, Open Science Framework, and Mendeley.

You need to deposit your research data to a repository and you are lost in options. I have been in the same situation recently.

If your data is of specific type then the choice is obvious. You deposit that data to a data-type specific repository. For example, nucleic acid sequence data need to be uploaded to the Sequence Read Archive (SRA) . Scripts and programs should be deposited to GitHub or similar resource with a version control system . Usually, you need to make your best to use these repositories because this will increase the chance of your data to be found by other researchers. Here is an extensive list of data-type specific repositories .

But if you also have some non-standard data formats, you need to use a generalist repository. The most popular ones are Dryad, FigShare, and Zenodo. These were the repositories I found first. Later, I also discovered the Open Science Framework (OSF) and it became my number one research data repository.

My key criteria when I was looking for the best repository for my scientific data were:

Ability to update files
Directory structure

Publishing in open-access journals already costs a fortunate, so I wanted to use a free repository to avoid additional spending. A digital object identifier (DOI) is probably a must for any publication. It is especially useful if you publish a dataset without a link to any paper. A DOI makes it easier to cite the dataset. I also would like to have an option to edit or update the data after the initial deposit. Mistakes are always possible and it is better to be able to correct them. The amount of data grows enormously and usually my projects have many files structured in directories. I would like to keep this directories order in my repositories too. The OSF repository meets these requirements the best.

Let me briefly summarize my option on each of the repositories I tried.

Dryad is the most popular research data repository. It is recommended by many journals. I used it to publish the supplementary data for my Molecular Ecology paper . By publishing in Molecular Ecology, you get a link to deposit your data to Dryad for free.

However, it is not a free repository. You need to pay $120 for a submission of up to 20GB , and +$50 for each additional 10GB . On the other hand, such a business model guarantees long term existence of this repository.

I like it for its simple and easy to use interface. Uploading the data is very simple and fast. You get a DOI for your data and some simple metrics such as a number of page views and downloads. But you cannot edit anything after the submission. There is no directory structure support, so you can upload a directory only as an archive file.

no edit/update after the submission
no directory structure support
not optimized for downloading many files at once

FigShare is a great repository for visual content. It shows a preview of every file. If I recall correctly, this was the initial purpose of FigShare. Now, you can also use FigShare to upload any file types.

There is no limit on files size if you make them public. You can modify your files after the publication with a version control system.

I think FigShare should be used only to share posters, slides, and figures . It is not convenient for sharing dozens of files. You can use collections and project, to unite many files. But there is no easy way to download many files. The interface of the repository is also not simple. You often need to navigate several windows to access a file.

unlimited space
image preview
optimized only for single visual file sharing
complicated to use

Zenodo is good in many regards . It is free. There is a version control system. The DOI is provided. You can meter page views and downloads.

The file size limit is 50GB per dataset but you can have an unlimited number of datasets.

However, you cannot create folders with files. You can upload each folder as a separate dataset or compress each folder into an archive and upload it. But this is not an ideal solution.

simple interface
version control system
50GB limit per dataset

Open Science Framework

OSF is my favorite repository to store my research data. It is surprisingly not very popular . It took a while until I found it. I believe its popularity will grow as it is an amazing repository for scientific data.

OSF is free. You get a DOI for your repository. There is a version control system. It supports directory structure in repositories. You can update your files after the publication and the history of the repository is tracked.

The default file size limit is 5 GB. But you can extend this limit with add-ons .

The OSF interface is more advanced than in other repositories. I consider it an advantage. But it is little too advanced and some user may find it difficult to use. So, I will still list it in the cons.

supports directory structure
optimized for downloading many files at once
not popular
advanced interface
5GB limit per file (no number of files limit)

I have not explored the funding of other repositories but OSF is secured by funding for 50+ years. The chance it will disappear is very small.

Mendeley is known as a digital library app with great reference tools. Recently, it also launched the Mendeley Data service. I found out about this Mendeley Data repository while writing this blog post.

It is a simple repository. If you already use Mendeley and you do not want to bother with other options, go ahead and use Mendeley Data.

You can see its pros and cons below. I only would like to emphasize that there is a moderation step to publish your data. So, be ready to wait sometime before your data becomes public.

optimized for downloading all files at once
no version control system
10 GB per dataset

This is not a comprehensive review. I just evaluate these repositories from my requirements. For example, you may need to check the funding of free repositories to make sure they won’t disappear soon. I also did not pay attention to license types these repositories support because I usually release my data into the public domain anyway.

If you think there is something crucial I missed, please let me know and I will add it.

Research Data Management for Purdue

The Purdue University Research Repository (PURR) provides an online, collaborative working space and data-sharing platform to support Purdue researchers and their collaborators.

Full spectrum support from planning to publication

Meet funders’ data requirements with our helpful resources and expert advice.

Collaborate

Your own file sharing space and update feed make team collaboration easy.

Publish your data, get a DOI and track your impact. Leave the archiving to us.

Our services

Expert help with Data Management Planning

PURR offers several layers of assistance with data management planning including step-by-step guidance, boilerplate text for your proposal , sample plans, and individual consultations.

Storage for all of your projects

PURR measures storage by the project not the user, so you always have room for something new. All projects start with 100GB of storage . Is your project grant funded? Let us know and we’ll bump that up to 1 TB at no cost to you.

Get credit for your data

Make it easy for researchers to find and cite your data by publishing with PURR. Each dataset gets a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) that makes it easier for people to cite your data and give you credit. PURR even helps keep track of when your dataset gets cited.

Measuring Impact

PURR’s most re-used dataset has been cited 99 times since it was published in 2015, including more than 50 articles in 25 journals with an average Journal Impact Factor of 3.185.

Computer Science

Discover new and interesting datasets

Explore the open data behind Purdue's world-class research. PURR publishes and archives digital datasets from researchers across campus and welcomes all kinds of open data from images and videos to spreadsheets and source code.

Data associated with Diagenesis of fossil gar fish scales with implications for applications in...

John Fink, Marissa M Tremblay, Thomas S Tobin, Lisa D Stockli, Daniel F Stockli, Ryan B Ickert

Preference of dhurrin-free sorghum by ewes

Shelby M. Gruss, Mitchell R Tuinstra

Aerial Fluvial Image Dataset (AFID) for Semantic Segmentation

Zihan Wang, Li-Fan Wu, Nina Mahmoudian

Processed Ceramics of the Boğsak Archaeological Survey Project

Günder Varinlioglu, Nicholas Kregotis Rauh, Stanislav Pejša, Noah Kaye

Data series media and ssi indices over time for California Drought Study

Robert Kulzic, Valeria Sinclair Chapman, Lauren Potts, Sorin Adam Matei

Explore more datasets

Purr at a glance, have a question, featured dataset.

James A McCann, Purdue Michael Jones-Correa , Cornell

An original national survey of the foreign-born Latino population in the US who were interviewed during and/or immediately after the 2012 national elections in the US.

Start Your Research Project

Create a Data Management Plan Learn about the detailed requirements for your data management plan (DMP). Funding agency requirements are very specific and our DMP resources can help you to clear up any confusion. Get Started ›

Upload Research Data to Your Project Create a project to upload and share your data with collaborators using our step-by-step form to guide you through the process. Invite collaborators from other institutions to join your project. Create a Project ›

Publish your Dataset Package, describe, and publish your dataset with a Datacite DOI. Publishing will ensure your dataset is citable, reusable, and archived for the long-term. See Published Datasets ›

IMAGES

What is a research repository and how can you build one?
7 Best Research Repository Tools of 2023
The Power of Research Repositories for Product Managers
The Ultimate Guide to Building a UX Research Repository
The best free Research Data Repository
The Ultimate Guide to Building a UX Research Repository

VIDEO

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Turnitin Class ID & Enrollment Key 2024 no repository class id
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Why You Need A Research Repository
H.R.H. Princess Monique's visit to Thailand (1987)

COMMENTS

arXiv.org e-Print archive
arXiv is a free distribution service and an open-access archive for nearly 2.4 million scholarly articles in the fields of physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics, electrical engineering and systems science, and economics. ... Computing Research Repository (CoRR new, recent, search ...
21 Legit Research Databases for Free Journal Articles in 2024
It is a highly interdisciplinary platform used to search for scholarly articles related to 67 social science topics. SSRN has a variety of research networks for the various topics available through the free scholarly database. The site offers more than 700,000 abstracts and more than 600,000 full-text papers.
Open Research Library
The Open Research Library (ORL) is planned to include all Open Access book content worldwide on one platform for user-friendly discovery, offering a seamless experience navigating more than 20,000 Open Access books.
6 Repositories to Share Research Data
1. figshare. Figshare is an open access data repository where researchers can preserve their research outputs, such as datasets, images, and videos and make them discoverable. Figshare allows researchers to upload any file format and assigns a digital object identifier (DOI) for citations. Mark Hahnel launched Figshare in January 2011.
JSTOR Home
Harness the power of visual materials—explore more than 3 million images now on JSTOR. Enhance your scholarly research with underground newspapers, magazines, and journals. Explore collections in the arts, sciences, and literature from the world's leading museums, archives, and scholars. JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals ...
Directory of Open Access Journals
About the directory. DOAJ is a unique and extensive index of diverse open access journals from around the world, driven by a growing community, and is committed to ensuring quality content is freely available online for everyone. DOAJ is committed to keeping its services free of charge, including being indexed, and its data freely available.
Open Data
Open Data is a strategy for incorporating research data into the permanent scientific record by releasing it under an Open Access license. Whether data is deposited in a purpose-built repository or published as Supporting Information alongside a research article, Open Data practices ensure that data remains accessible and discoverable.
Harvard Dataverse
Harvard Dataverse is an online data repository where you can share, preserve, cite, explore, and analyze research data. It is open to all researchers, both inside and out of the Harvard community. Harvard Dataverse provides access to a rich array of datasets to support your research. It offers advanced searching and text mining in over 2,000 ...
Google Scholar
Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. Search across a wide variety of disciplines and sources: articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions.
Internet Archive Scholar
Search Millions of Research Papers. This fulltext search index includes over 35 million research articles and other scholarly documents preserved in the Internet Archive. The collection spans from digitized copies of eighteenth century journals through the latest Open Access conference proceedings and preprints crawled from the World Wide Web.
Recommended Repositories
Recommended Repositories. All data, software and code underlying reported findings should be deposited in appropriate public repositories, unless already provided as part of the article. Repositories may be either subject-specific repositories that accept specific types of structured data and/or software, or cross-disciplinary generalist ...
Open-access repository
An open repository or open-access repository is a digital platform that holds research output and provides free, immediate and permanent access to research results for anyone to use, download and distribute. To facilitate open access such repositories must be interoperable according to the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH).
Best 24 Free User Research Repositories Picks in 2024
Best free User Research Repositories across 24 User Research Repositories products. See reviews of Productboard, EnjoyHQ (Now part of UserTesting), Condens and compare free or paid products easily. Get the G2 on the right User Research Repositories for you.
arXiv
arXiv (pronounced as "archive"—the X represents the Greek letter chi χ ) is an open-access repository of electronic preprints and postprints (known as e-prints) approved for posting after moderation, but not peer review.It consists of scientific papers in the fields of mathematics, physics, astronomy, electrical engineering, computer science, quantitative biology, statistics, mathematical ...
CORE
OAI identifiers are unique identifiers minted cost-free by repositories. Ensure that your repository is correctly configured, enabling the CORE OAI Resolver to redirect your identifiers to your repository landing pages.. OAI IDs provide a cost-free option for assigning Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) to your repository records.
UX Research Repository: Templates & Best Practices
With a detailed research repository guide to help you on your way, it's a great tool for teams of any size. Plus, you can also embed live Maze reports, alongside other UX research and analysis tools. 3. Dovetail. Dovetail is a user research platform for collecting, analyzing, and storing research projects.
Repositories for Sharing Scientific Data
Repository DescriptionThe NIH Common Fund's National Metabolomics Data Repository (NMDR) is now accepting metabolomics data for small and large studies on cells, tissues and organisms via the Metabolomics Workbench. We can accommodate a variety of metabolite analyses, including, but not limited to MS and NMR.
What is a Research Repository? Benefits and Uses
A research repository acts as a centralized database where information is gathered, stored, analyzed, and archived in one organized space. In this single source of truth, raw data, documents, reports, observations, and insights can be viewed, managed, and analyzed. This allows teams to organize raw data into themes, gather actionable insights ...
Open Access Databases
The World Bank Open Knowledge Repository (OKR) is the World Bank's official open access repository for its research outputs and knowledge products. Through the OKR, the World Bank collects, disseminates, and permanently preserves its intellectual output in digital form. The OKR is interoperable with other repositories and supports optimal discoverability and re-usability of the content by ...
UX Research Repository Guide [2024]
What is a User Research Repository. A repository is just store of information. We call it a repository when we want to be fancy 💃. A user research repository is a place to store research data, notes, and insights. These can be accessed when needed, ideally by everyone in the organization. A good repository would let teams across the ...
Research Repositories for Tracking UX Research and Growing Your ResearchOps
A research repository is a shared collection of UX-research-related elements that should support the following functions at the organization level: grow UX awareness and participation in UX work among leadership, product owners, and the organization at large. support UX research work, so UX professionals may be more productive as they plan and ...
The best free Research Data Repository
The best free Research Data Repository. I compare the most popular repository for research data: Dryad, Zenodo, FigShare, Open Science Framework, and Mendeley. You need to deposit your research data to a repository and you are lost in options. I have been in the same situation recently. If your data is of specific type then the choice is obvious.
PURR
Research Data Management for Purdue. The Purdue University Research Repository (PURR) provides an online, collaborative working space and data-sharing platform to support Purdue researchers and their collaborators. DOI: 10.4231/R7VD6WDZ.

Mathematics

Computer Science

Quantitative Biology

Quantitative Finance

Electrical Engineering and Systems Science

About arXiv

21 Legit Research Databases for Free Journal Articles in 2024

Download Our Free Research Database Roundup PDF

Where to Find Peer-Reviewed Articles

What Are Open Access Journals?

Choosing Wisely

Features of Illegitimate OA Journals

How to Find Scholarly Articles

Narrow Down Results

Consider Different Avenues

Determining the Credibility of Scholarly Sources

The Top 21 Free Online Journal and Research Databases

2. ScienceOpen

3. Directory of Open Access Journals

4. Education Resources Information Center

5. arXiv e-Print Archive

6. Social Science Research Network

7. Public Library of Science

8. OpenDOAR

9. Bielefeld Academic Search Engine

10. Digital Library of the Commons Repository

11. CIA World Factbook

12. Paperity

13. dblp Computer Science Bibliography

14. EconBiz

15. BioMed Central

20. Semantic Scholar

Check out our roundup of free research databases as a handy one-page PDF.

Check the Author

Identify Subject and Audience

Format Matters

Publication

Common Research Mistakes to Avoid

Sticking to One Source

Not Documenting Every Fact

Using Outdated Materials

Relying Solely on Open Access Journals

Digging Too Deep or Not Deep Enough

Different Types of Scholarly Articles

10 Tips for Navigating Journal Databases

7 Frequently Asked Questions

2. How Do I Find Journal Articles?

3. How Do I Find Peer-Reviewed Articles?

4. What Are Research Databases?

5. How Do I Find Scholarly Articles for Specific Fields?

6. Are Peer-Reviewed Articles Really More Legitimate?

7. Are Free Article Directories Legitimate?

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Six repositories to share research data

1. figshare

2. Mendeley Data

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3. Dryad Digital Repository

4. Harvard Dataverse

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