An Introduction to Managing Open Data

An Essential Introduction for Healthcare Professionals and Researchers 

Open data has become essential to modern medical research publishing. Whether you’re a consultant, professor, or senior researcher, understanding how to manage open data effectively is now crucial for publication success. This guide provides a straightforward introduction to help you navigate this important aspect of research publication. 

Why Open Data Matters in Healthcare Research 

Open data represents a fundamental shift in medical research. By making your data accessible, you’re contributing to accelerated discoveries, research validation, and maximized impact of publicly funded work whilst meeting funder and publication requirements.   

Science Foundation Ireland, the Health Research Board, and major international publishers now require data management plans. The European Commission’s Horizon Europe programme mandates responsible research data management aligned with FAIR principles. 

The benefits extend beyond compliance: enhanced credibility, increased citations, facilitated collaboration, and lasting scientific contribution. 

Understanding the FAIR Principles 

FAIR principles—Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable—form the international standard for research data management. The principles emphasise machine-actionability (i.e., the capacity of computational systems to find, access, interoperate, and reuse data with none or minimal human intervention) because humans increasingly rely on computational support to deal with data as a result of the increase in volume, complexity, and creation speed of data.  

Findable data should be easy for both humans and machines to find. 

Accessible data refers to data that can be accessed once found; this may involve authentication of the user and authorization of access. 

Interoperable data refers to data that can be compared and combined with data from different sources, by both humans and machines. 

Reusable data refers to sharing data which can be reused by others. This is the main goal of the FAIR Principles. 

Additional, practical guidance can be found on the GoFAIR website. 

Find out more about the HRB Open Research Policy on data availability in our data guidelines.  

Creating Your Data Management Plan 

Before you get started, check out our FAQs on Open Data to ensure you have everything you need to share data successfully.   

Creating a data management plan (DMP) at the beginning of your research project isn’t just best practice—it’s often a funder requirement. Your DMP should outline how you’ll collect, securely handle, and store data throughout the project and beyond, while clearly defining responsibilities. Preparing a DMP also ensures that you plan for data sharing from the outset, making the process much easier.  

Some things to consider when you are preparing your DMP include deciding early on your data sharing format. This then shapes the data collection and processing, and will save you considerable time later. You should also ensure that your participant consent forms explicitly cover the publication of anonymized results, not just research use.  

The Digital Curation Centre provides excellent DMP examples to guide you through the process, helping you create a comprehensive plan that supports both your research integrity and future data sharing obligations. 

Managing Data Throughout Your Research 

Effective data management begins at collection. To assist with this, you can use standardized formats, implement version control, create data dictionaries, and ensure quality through validation rules, regular checks, and backups.  

Health data requires special protection under GDPR and Irish Health Research Regulations. There are a variety of ways to achieve this, includinganonymising identifiable information in accordance with the Safe Harbor method, obtaining proper consent, and implementing access controls. This may also require input from your Institutional Review Board or a similar organisation. 

When preparing your data for publication, select repositories with persistent identifiers, create comprehensive metadata, and choose appropriate licenses (Creative Commons for open data or custom agreements for sensitive data). More information on choosing appropriate repositories can be found in our Data Guidelines. 

Your Action Plan 

For new projects: Create a data management plan during study design, choose appropriate standards, implement quality control from day one, document continuously, and identify a repository early.  

For ongoing research: Review current practices, improve documentation and metadata, ensure proper backups and version control, and plan for data sharing at publication.  

For completed research: Assess what can be shared ethically and legally, prepare comprehensive documentation, select a repository, deposit data to obtain a DOI, and include a clear data availability statement in your manuscript. Always review your target journal’s data policy before submission, as requirements range from mandatory deposition to encouraged sharing. 

Conclusion 

Managing open data is increasingly essential to modern medical research. By adopting FAIR principles, creating solid data management plans, and working with appropriate repositories, you’ll enhance the quality, impact, and reproducibility of your research while meeting compliance requirements. 

Start with manageable steps and build your capabilities progressively. Your commitment to open data contributes to more transparent, collaborative research that ultimately accelerates medical discoveries and improves patient care. 

Learn more about data sharing on HRB Open Research here. And if you’re ready to join the thousands of HRB-funded researchers already publishing their work with HRB Open Research, submit your research for publication today.