Deposit in the ReShare repository

ReShare was initially established to support Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) grant holders to disseminate and preserve their data collections. Today, ReShare has expanded its remit to serve all researchers regardless of their funding status, enabling them to archive, publish, and share their Open or Safeguarded data collections.

If you have collected social science data or developed associated code or syntax that aligns with the UK Data Service Collections Development Policy (PDF), you can deposit these in the ReShare repository. Collections must meet ethical and legal requirements, be in acceptable recommended file formats, and be accompanied by supporting documentation. You must be either legally responsible or have legal authority for the data collection to complete the deposit. ReShare is an ideal platform for archiving smaller-scale and experimental data referenced in data papers or data descriptors published in peer-reviewed journals, such as Scientific Data or the Research Data Journal, or associated code and syntax. Depositing your collection in ReShare enhances its visibility, accessibility, and potential for reuse by the broader research community.

If you have collected population-representative data you can deposit it in the UK Data Service curated repository. Please contact our Collections Development team for guidance if you are unsure which repository is suitable for your data collection.

As per the ESRC Research Data Policy, grant holders are required to make their research data available for reuse within three months of the grant’s end. The data and accompanying documentation can be made available via ReShare or an appropriate responsible digital repository.

Where ESRC grant holders host data via an alternative responsible repository, such as their institutional repository, they must provide a metadata record for resource discovery via ReShare to maximise the discoverability of ESRC data assets.

We also provide additional information on managing and depositing data relating to your award.

To deposit data, you will need to register and create your own account. Every individual user must have their own account; you cannot register on behalf of your institution, or share an account with colleagues.

To deposit in the ReShare repository, log in to ReShare and navigate to My Data. From there you can use “Create a new data collection” to start the submission process. Please make sure you have checked our guidance before you start the deposit.

Your online account allows you to agree to the deposit agreement, edit and submit study-level metadata and submit the data and documentation files.

How to deposit data in the ReShare repository (Video)

Before you start to deposit a new data collection, check these guidelines on how to prepare your data files and documentation:

Group your data files in zip bundles (max 5 GB) according to their content or file format, to make uploading and downloading easier, e.g. a zip bundle for transcripts, a zip bundle for the documentation (for large collections, keep a folder structure for the files in your zip bundle).
Check our recommended file formats before uploading files.
Give files meaningful names that reflect the file content; these should not contain spaces and/or special characters.
Check that files contain no disclosive information (beware of hidden tracked changes in text or table files and remove names and disclosive info from ‘file properties’); to anonymise data consider techniques such as:
- Removing direct identifiers such as respondents’ names, addresses (physical, email and IP), institution names and telephone numbers; respondents’ names can be replaced by pseudonyms.
- Aggregating variables, restricting the upper or lower ranges of continuous variables, reducing the precision of a variable or textual information by replacing potentially disclosive free-text responses with more general text.
Create a ReadMe file (Word) for your data collection, with:
- a short description of each file or each bundle of files in the collection
- any relationships between the data files.
Prepare essential documentation to upload with your data:
- your ReadMe file (see above)
- clear variable and value labels (descriptions) in each data file
- questionnaire or data dictionary for survey data
- topic list or interview schedule for interview data
- data list (Excel) of interviews
- blank copies of consent form(s) and participant information sheet used
- methods description or data paper if available
- for synthetic data, consult our requirements for the user guide content before deposit.

The ReShare repository supports the sharing of Open and Safeguarded data.

Open

Suitable for data that are neither classified as Personal Data nor Personal Information and with no residual risk of disclosure or where consent to share Personal Data or Personal Information as Open Access is in place.
These are made available to any user without the requirement for registration for download/access.
Usual licences for reuse are the Open Government Licence and Creative Commons variations.

Safeguarded

Suitable for data that are neither classified as Personal Data nor Personal Information and where the risk of identification is considered sufficiently remote. These data are effectively anonymised (PDF).
Use of data is subject to the End User Licence Agreement (PDF).
These data are made available to registered, authenticated users, and where appropriate, additional conditions are put in place.
Two additional conditions may apply:
1. Data may only be used for non-commercial purposes.
2. Permission may be required before data is shared with secondary researchers.

For permission-only access, secondary researchers must contact the named individual on record to obtain approval. Once permission is granted, it must be forwarded to us. We verify the researcher’s account status, and adherence to the End User Licence Agreement, and facilitate the data transfer if all criteria are met.

If you have deposited via ReShare and your collection has been published but requires significant changes such as data or documentation changes, please contact our ReShare team and specify the Study Title for the collection you wish to update. The team will arrange a new version of the record for you to edit.

If small changes to the study level metadata are needed, for example, a change in contact, these can be actioned directly by the ReShare team.

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