Archiving best practices
Data archiving is a process of making data available for future uses in the long term. This requires
- organizing data so that others can understand and use it appropriately
- choosing a repository that will store the data and allow others to find it
- defining the terms of use and citation
- making the data public or maintaining a current contact to respond to questions and requests for use
Archiving requirements for animal tracking studies can come from organizations that fund, permit, publish or execute the work. Even when it is not required, many researchers choose to archive their data to participate in collaborative projects or make it available for future generations. There are many ways to archive animal tracking data—for example, in a university repository, generalist repositories such as Dryad, or a government data center—and often few or no guidelines about how the data should be prepared. To support archiving efforts, we offer recommendations to data owners for how to archive data in Movebank and as biodiversity data using the Darwin Core standard.
Archiving best practices