The Stanford Digital Repository supports management of scholarly information resources of enduring value to Stanford University. Faculty, students, and researchers use SDR services to promote and protect the products of their work. Scholars around the world use content in the SDR in their research. The benefits of this service distinguish the SDR from other content storage or management options on campus: deposited content is preserved in a robust, reliable, and secure environment for access by scholars today and for generations to come.

The US Office of Science and Technology Policy published a memo in January 2013 requiring all Federal agencies with over $100 million in annual research and development expenditures to develop plans for increased public access to the results of research funded by the Federal Government. This includes both scientific publications and digital scientific data, and applies to many of the granting agencies that fund research here at Stanford.

In addition, many funding agencies require a Data Management Plan with every funding request. A data management plan (DMP) is a written document that describes the data a researcher is expected to acquire or generate during the course of a research project; how the data will be managed, described, analyzed, and stored; and what mechanisms will be used at the end of the project to share and preserve the data. Each agency or directorate creates its own set of policies for data management.

Researchers at Stanford are invited to include the Stanford Digital Repository (SDR) as part of their Data Management Plans by specifying that the outputs of their research projects will be preserved and shared through the SDR. The SDR satisfies the requirements of funding agencies for making your work publicly discoverable and accessible, as well as for ensuring its long-term preservation. We have composed some standard language about the SDR if you would like to include this in your data management plan.

If you are a Stanford researcher interested in depositing research data in the Stanford Digital Repository, please contact us at sdr-contact@lists.stanford.edu.