It's that time of year again—hearts, valentines, and... data! 📊💖 Yes, International Love Data Week is February 10-14, and this year's theme is “Whose Data Is It, Anyway?” Many institutions, including Johns Hopkins, are hosting free virtual data events through the week. Check out their online talks, panels, and webinars here. View all 2025 Love Data Week events and activities happening locally and virtually around the world. To celebrate, the Medical Center Library is excited to share some great data resources to help you become better stewards of the data you work with.
Duke’s Research Data Policy
In May 2023, Duke released its revised research data policies, covering key aspects such as data ownership, management, access, transfer, and retention.
Key Highlights:
- Data Ownership: Did you know that in almost all cases, Duke owns the research data produced at Duke?
- Data Retention: Investigators need to keep physical and digital research records for at least 6 years post-publication or grant closeout.
For more details, check out the Duke Research Policy Manual Chapter 5: Research Data, and visit the Duke Data Policy FAQs.
Data Citation
Just like citing a published study, it's important to give credit to the data sources you use in your research. If you're publishing an article that references your own research data that has been shared in a data repository, include a reference to the data in the text and add a data citation to the references section. This not only helps others find your work but also provides proof to funders that you shared your data.
A data citation should include:
- Responsible party (e.g., investigator, creator)
- Title of the dataset
- Date of publication
- Version, if applicable
- Name of the data center, repository, and/or publication
- Analysis software, if required
- Date accessed
- Identifier (e.g., DOI or other persistent link)
If you have a DOI, try using the DOI citation formatter to build a citation; choose from over 5000 styles. Here's an example:
- Duke University School of Medicine/Duke University Hospital. Available datapackage for study “DUKE CATH Educational dataset.” Vivli https://doi.org/10.25934/PR00009659.0 (2023).
Get Inspired and Learn More!
Feeling inspired to dive deeper into data? Sign up for a class!
- The Medical Center Library offers classes on understanding NIH Data Management and Sharing Requirements, and an introduction to the clinical data repository, Vivli. Check out our class calendar to sign up.
- The Duke Center for Data and Visualization Sciences (CDVS) offers a variety of data-related classes, including the Ethics of Data Management, Sharing Human Participants Data, and Preparing for Data Publishing. Check out their workshop schedule to sign up.
If you have questions, email a librarian at the Medical Center Library at medical-librarian@duke.ed