Research Guides: Data Preservation Efforts and Data Sources: Home

Overview of the RDM Task Force

The Research Data Management Task Force is a collaboration between Libraries and Academic Innovation, Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library, GW Information Technology, and the Office of the Vice Provost for Research.

We need your help!

Submit a Dataset: If you have downloaded a research dataset that should be preserved for long-term access, submit this form. A member of the RDM Task Force will follow up to assist with secure storage and preservation.
Nominate a Dataset: Know of a dataset at risk? Whether you use it yourself or know someone who does, complete this survey to help us identify and prioritize datasets for preservation.

Data Preservation and Archiving Organizations

The following list spotlights external organizations that work in the realm of data preservation and seek to inform others about data preservation efforts and discussions.

COPAFS: Council of Professional Associations of Federal Statistics
The Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics (COPAFS) is devoted to educational activities and to preserving the public good represented by federal statistical collections.
Data Lumos (ICPSR)
DataLumos is an ICPSR archive for valuable government data resources. ICPSR has a long commitment to safekeeping and disseminating US government and other social science data. DataLumos accepts deposits of public data resources from the community and recommendations of public data resources that ICPSR itself might add to DataLumos.
DCN: Data Curation Network
The Data Curation Network (DCN) is a membership organization based at the University of Minnesota that supports collaborative efforts between institutional and non-profit data repositories to make data more ethical, reusable, and understandable. The DCN website shares data curation best practices and provides training resources and professional development opportunities in data curation. The DCN also facilitates a shared-curation workflow, in which datasets from one institution are matched with an expert at a different member institution.
Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI)
The Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI) is a research collaborative and network of diverse professionals promoting evidence-based policy-making and public interest science that advances the Environmental Right to Know (ERTK). They have been archiving US federal environmental data.
Harvard Law Library Innovation Lab
The Innovation Lab has created a data vault to download, sign as authentic, and make available copies of public government data that is most valuable to researchers, scholars, civil society and the public at large across every field. They have collected major portions of the datasets tracked by data.gov, federal Github repositories, and PubMed.
IASSIST: International Association for Social Science Information Service and Technology
IASSIST members work in information technology, libraries, data services, research & higher education, government, non-profit and the private research sector to discover data, curate it, make it available, and keep it available. Encourages collaborative approaches to responsible data management and use, development of broad community surrounding research data, and support for open science.
Internet Archive
Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free texts, movies, software, music, websites, and more.
IPUMS
IPUMS provides census and survey data from around the world integrated across time and space. IPUMS integration and documentation makes it easy to study change, conduct comparative research, merge information across data types, and analyze individuals within family and community contexts. Data and services available free of charge.
Public Environmental Data Project
Volunteer organization committed to preserving and providing public access to federal environmental data.
Research Data Access and Preservation Association (RDAP)
The Research Data Access & Preservation (RDAP) Association is a nonprofit organization that supports information professionals in creating, maintaining, advancing, and teaching best practices for research data, access, and preservation. The RDAP community includes data managers and curators, librarians, archivists, researchers, educators, students, technologists, and data scientists from academic institutions, data centers, funding agencies, and industry who represent a wide range of STEM disciplines, social sciences, and humanities.
Silencing Science Tracker
The Silencing Science Tracker is a joint initiative of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund; it records reports of federal, state, and local government initiatives that may restrict or prohibit scientific research, education, or discussion, or the publication or use of scientific information.

Data Preservation Efforts and Data Sources

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Overview of the RDM Task Force

Data Preservation and Archiving Organizations