Regarding the recording of “Research Data” and “Evidence Data”

Regarding the collection of "Research Data" and "Evidence Data" from Institutional Repositories.

Under the current open science policy in Japan has been the situation that is promoting the following two policies side by side.

Research DX (digital transformation)
- Open science: "Promoting articles, etc. open access","Management and utilization of publicly funded research data", etc.
https://www8.cao.go.jp/cstp/kenkyudx.html (in Japanese)

Research data are expected to be published as individual research results in accordance with the policy described in (1). Since the evidence data of an article is also a type of research data, it is expected to be published as an individual research result in the same way.

However, in the case of open access of articles according to policy (2), the evidence data may be published along with the article.

For this reason, in the publication of research data promoted by domestic
Institutional Repositories, the following two formats are seen.
 

  • Format (A): Register "research data" as one independent item
  • Format (B): As a part of the main item for publishing article, "Evidence Data" is published in an attached file format

CiNii Research will record these publication style items of Institutional Repositories as follows.

  • For Format (A), CiNii Research will record as "Research Data" based on "Research Data Metadata".
  • For Format (B), CiNii Research will record as "Article" etc. related to the main item, and will not be recorded as "Research Data".

Currently, CiNii Research may record data associated with main items of resource types other than "Article" as "Research Data." In the future, CiNii Research will expand the collection of resource types other than "Article" and will arrange to register them as the original resource type of the main item.

Request appropriate registration and publish of “Research Data” and “Evidence Data”

It is preferable that research data,including evidence data, be published in Format (A) from the viewpoint of discoverability and accessibility in accordance with the FAIR Principles.

However, for various reasons, there are cases in which the data may be published in Format (B).

  1. In principle, for research data,use Format (A) to register and publish the research data along with metadata. 
    In the case of evidence data for an article, please describe the information related to the article.
  2. For research data that must or must be published as part of an article, use Format (B) to register and publish the research data along with the article.

When falling under 2 but registering and publishing research data at a different time or as an item from the article, please register and publish the research data with metadata using Format (A), and describe the information related to the article.

When registering and publishing "Research Data" or "Evidence Data" in Institutional Repositories, we would appreciated it if you would select a publication format appropriate to the nature of the data.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　【November 26, 2025】Based on inquiries to this page, we have adjusted some of the wording.