Services

For Depositors

When you deposit data in Deep Blue Data, you have access to local, expert and customized assistance. This includes help with:

Planning: Text for Data Sharing or Management Plans

Our librarians can review and provide feedback on your Data Management Plan (DMP), which is now required by many funding agencies. More generally, we will consult with you to help you plan for the eventual deposit of your data into Deep Blue Data and consider what actions you might want to take over the course of your research.

This boilerplate text for DMPs can be inserted into your Data Sharing Plan or Data Management Plan to indicate your use of Deep Blue Data as a means to share and preserve your data:

The data generated through this project will be deposited into Deep Blue Data, the University of Michigan's institutional data repository. Deep Blue Data has been developed by the U-M Library to assist researchers in complying with grant-funding agency requirements.

Content in Deep Blue Data is stored on networked storage operated by U-M Information and Technology Services (ITS) in campus data centers. ITS provides the Library with a single active instance of the content on spinning disk, and a nightly replica of the content to an alternate campus data center for disaster recovery purposes only. Tape backups with 6-month retention are conducted nightly using the campus-operated tape backup service, and are also replicated to a remote site nightly. More details about the storage service are available at MiStorage and about the tape backup service at MiBackup.

During deposit, researchers include documentation for the data and assign metadata to the data to facilitate its discovery and use. The metadata can be harvested by search engines such as Google Dataset Search. Datasets are assigned a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) as a persistent identifier, enabling the data to be cited in publications. Researchers select a Creative Commons or other open license as a part of the deposit process to describe the conditions under which others may use the data. Deposited data will be accessible through Deep Blue Data for at least 10 years, after which it will be appraised for continued preservation by University Library personnel.

Managing

Our librarians are available for consultation about managing and developing your dataset to facilitate successful sharing and preservation. We can work with you to determine what documentation you will need, how you might describe your data using a metadata schema appropriate for your data, and how to organize your data for ease of understanding and use.

Depositing

When you are ready to deposit your data into Deep Blue Data, we can help you gather the information you will need, walk you through the process, or answer any questions that you may have. We can also provide guidance on how to increase the potential impact of sharing your dataset through Deep Blue Data, and how Deep Blue Data works to promote the accessibility and long-term preservation of your data.

For Users

Users may search and browse Deep Blue Data and find datasets to download and use. We also have an FAQ and guide to using our data. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.