GREI Repositories: Everyone has a repository, they just don't know it!

USRN Community Conversation Series GREI Repositories: Everyone has a repository, they just don't know it! November 6, 2025 Presenters Ana Van Gulick Head of Customer Engagement for Government, Funders & Nonprofits, Figshare, Digital Science Pearl Go Data Librarian, Northwestern University on behalf of Zenodo Traci Snowden Product Manager - Mendeley Data, Digital Commons Data Agenda ●About GREI ●A Balancing Act: Navigating Competition and Collaboration in the GREI Ecosystem ●GREI Resources ●Generalist repositories as Institutional repositories ●Facilitated discussion and presenter Q&A Join our Slido session to share your feedback! slido.com join code: 1793994 About GREI Join our Slido session to share your feedback! slido.com join code: 1793994 A strong repository landscape provides researchers with multiple locations to share their data. The inclusion of established generalist repositories in the data sharing ecosystem is helping to catalyze the flexible sharing of data and other research outputs in any format that cannot be shared elsewhere. Domainspecific Repositories Generalist Repositories* Institutional Repositories �� �� �� �� �� �� Data Repository Landscape 🌲🌲 �� �� �� �� �� �� *Some generalist repositories serve as backbone infrastructure for institutional repositories. ●Data type ●Format ●Content ●Disciplinary focus ●Methodology Software Presentation Image Video Article Poster Data Generalist Repositories Accept Data Regardless of: https://datascience.nih.gov/data-ecosystem/generalist-repository-ecosystem-initiative GREI focus Slido Results A Balancing Act: Navigating Competition and Collaboration in the GREI Ecosystem Join our Slido session to share your feedback! slido.com join code: 1793994 From Awareness to Action: Creating Tools for the Community Practical, openly available resources Generalist Repository Comparison Chart: A detailed chart comparing features, limits, and costs to help users select the right repository. This is the most viewed and downloaded item in the GREI Zenodo community. GREI Use Case Catalog: Published seven total use cases for researchers, institutions, and funders to demonstrate practical applications of generalist repositories in an NIH data sharing context. Generalist Repository Selection Flowchart: Designed to guide users through a series of considerations for selecting the right repository for sharing data. GREI Use Case Catalogs in Zenodo doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3946719 doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11105429 v4 From Awareness to Action: Creating Tools for the Community More practical, openly available resources based on feedback Guide for Including a Generalist Repository in an NIH Data Management and Sharing (DMS) Plan: Specific guidance and sample text for researchers for each required element of an NIH DMS Plan when a generalist repository is being used. Best Practices for Data Submission in Generalist Repositories: A checklist of best practices for researchers to follow when planning, preparing, submitting, and following up on data submissions to generalist repositories. doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14278906 doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14278957 GREI Real-World User Stories To demonstrate the real impact of the GREI repositories, each repository has begun collecting stories from real repository users about their experiences sharing and reusing biomedical data in generalist repositories. Through these stories we have learned how researchers have, for example: GREI Real-World User Stories can be found at: https://bit.ly/GREIUserStories Shared complex, multimodal datasets that have been reused by other labs, leading to new discoveries and collaborations. Combined and reused data from separate clinical trials to create new disease models and directly inform national clinical practice guidelines. Published analysis code, software, and workflows, improving reproducibility and accelerating research in computationally intensive fields like multi-omics and biomedical informatics. From Awareness to Action: Creating Tools for the Community We openly share all GREI resources in the GREI Zenodo Community under the CC BY 4.0 license. Since the start of the GREI program in 2022, the GREI Zenodo community has: 56 DIGITAL RECORDS ~60,000 UNIQUE VIEWS ~36,000 UNIQUE DOWNLOADS We also regularly publish updates on GREI resources and activities to the GREI community blog. medium.com/@blog-grei Slido Results Generalist Repositories as Institutional Repositories Join our Slido session to share your feedback! slido.com join code: 1793994 GREI Improvements -> Institutional Impact ç Search & Discover Google-style search and browse implemented Advanced search: filtering & sorting Cross-repository indexing in progress Metadata Standards Collect and submit relational metadata to DataCite DataCite optional fields implementation underway Usage & Attribution Implement ROR IDs for author and funder affiliation Make Data Count standards DataCite usage tracker Insights from Institutional Users GREI contacted select institutions using generalist repositories as their institutional repositories. We gathered insights on: ●Repository implementation models ●Patterns of repository usage ●Institutional needs and priorities Full results can be found at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15604071 Institutional Considerations: Legacy Data Repositories, Custom-Builds, Support Resources Of the institutions represented in this presentation: Replaced legacy system Maintaining multiple repositories Build own repository vs. use GR decision 2 institutions Due to sustainability, meeting user needs and/or policy alignment. 3 institutions To support different use cases (e.g., managed vs. open access, active data management & collaboration vs. static published data). 3 institutions Considered custom builds but chose generalist repositories for long-term sustainability. Usage Patterns Across Repositories As reported by the institutional representative Current trends ●Growing number of researchers citing the repository in NIH Data Management & Sharing Plans ●Repository usage varies by discipline ●Most data submissions are from small projects or publisher mandates — expected to shift as 2023 DMS Policy funding cycles conclude Emerging needs ●Restricting access to datasets ●Sharing large datasets and large files