Deposit Data

DSDR welcomes deposits of digital data on population health supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, as well as study and variable-level metadata, scales, and user syntax.

To begin your deposit, click on the “Start Deposit” button below and select “DSDR” in the Archive drop-down menu.

Start Deposit

Help with Depositing Data

The DSDR team supports your deposit project every step of the way—from consulting on data sharing plans in your grant proposal to depositing, curating, and releasing your data.

Through ICPSR, DSDR provides secure, long-term data preservation grounded in best practices and FAIR data principles. We uphold the highest ethical and legal standards and follow established data citation practices to track impact and reuse. Each study released through DSDR receives a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to ensure persistent access and easy discovery in publications.

Explore these resources to help you get started:

Don’t see what you need? Email DSDR-data@umich.edu with any questions or for help with your deposit. For deposits involving physical materials, please email icpsr-help@umich.edu

Data archived through DSDR benefits from protocols and services developed and supported by ICPSR including:

  • Data Curation, which enhances and adds value to data by making them easier to use. We also describe data fully for web discovery and protect respondent privacy.
  • Long-Term Preservation which ensure long-term data availability.
  • Widespread availability by offering data without charge and in a variety of formats.

Archiving data with DSDR also benefits researchers. Specifically, working with ICPSR, DSDR provides researchers with:

  • User Support. DSDR staff are available to answer questions about downloading and using data.
  • Levels of Access. DSDR offers restricted access data services and a secure data enclave.
  • Aggregation of Publications. DSDR creates a database of citations based on analyses of your data. Users of data are asked to send citations for their publications to icpsrbibliography@umich.edu.
  • NIH and NSF data management plans. Archiving data with DSDR helps meet NIH and NSF data sharing requirements.

Are you preparing a research project and need guidance on how to archive and share your data afterward?

NIH Resources

ICPSR Resources

  1. Data File(s)

    DSDR encourages depositors to submit data as SAS, SPSS, or Stata files. ASCII files are also acceptable as long as they are accompanied with data definition statements. Datasets in other formats can be accepted as well. Each variable in the data collection should have a set of exhaustive, mutually-exclusive codes. Variable labels and value labels should clearly describe the information or question recorded in that variable. Missing data codes should be defined. When applicable, all identifying information should be removed from the records to ensure confidentiality.

  2. Documentation

    Documentation files are integral to interpreting a data collection and should thoroughly explain the data collection. Examples of documentation files include:

    • Codebooks;
    • Data collection instruments;
    • Summary statistics;
    • Project summaries; and
    • Bibliographies of publications pertaining to the data.

    Documentation can be submitted as Microsoft Word, ASCII, and DDI XML files, among other formats. Documentation that has the question text integrated with variable information is preferred.

  3. Description

    Every new or revised DSDR study includes a study description, which provides summary information about the data collection. Study descriptions are valuable resources to data users and include both general information, such as study title and summary, as well as more detailed information about the study design and methodology. Much of the information used by DSDR curators to create the study description comes from the ICPSR data deposit form. A list of deposit form fields is provided to help you prepare and compile study description information before depositing your data.

The DSDR team reviews the deposited materials to ensure the deposit is complete and will contact you with any questions we have. The materials then move to the ICPSR Curation team where staff enhance and add value to data by:

  • Reviewing data for disclosure risk and suggesting remediation, if necessary.
  • Determining whether the documentation is sufficient to read and analyze the data.
  • Working with you to fix any identified inconsistencies in the data
  • Creating a study description.
  • Adding question text to variables, if available.
  • Creating variable and value labels.
  • Adding study variables to the variables catalog to allow researchers to discover, examine, and compare variables across studies.
  • Cataloging (tagging) data for discovery via searches.
  • Making data available for exploration through online analysis.
  • For restricted data, recording disclosure protection rules.

Once quality checked and approved for distribution, data are made available on the DSDR and ICPSR websites and archived for long-term preservation.

(Copied from the ICPSR deposit system)

For ICPSR to archive and distribute this data collection, we require an electronic signature attesting to the following statements

  1. I have all rights needed to make this Data Collection publicly available through DSDR.
  2. I give my permission for the Data Collection to be used by DSDR for the following purposes, without limitation:
    1. To re-disseminate copies of the Data Collection in a variety of media formats
    2. To promote and advertise the Data Collection in any publicity (in any form) for DSDR
    3. To describe, catalog, validate, and document the Data Collection
    4. To store, translate, copy, or re-format the Data Collection in any way to ensure its future preservation and accessibility
    5. To incorporate metadata or documentation in the Data Collection into public access catalogues
  3. I give my permission to DSDR to enhance, transform, and/or rearrange the Data Collection, including the data and metadata, for any of the following purposes:
    1. Protect respondent confidentiality
    2. Improve usability
  4. I have prepared this data collection for archiving and distribution in a manner consistent with the consent of the study participants and the relevant Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval, if applicable.
  5. I further agree to release and hold harmless DSDR and ICPSR (including staff and the ICPSR Council) and The University of Michigan from any and all liability from claims arising out of any legal action concerning identification of research subjects, breaches of confidentiality, or invasions of privacy by or on behalf of said subjects.

ICPSR makes quantitative data files available in several widely used formats, including ASCII, tab-delimited (for use with Excel), SAS, SPSS, Stata, and R. Documentation is provided as PDF. For long-term preservation, data are stored in accordance with prevailing standards and practice. Currently, ICPSR stores quantitative data as ASCII along with setup files for the statistical software packages, and documentation is preserved using XML and PDF/A.