Creating, receiving and sharing data, including access to large data sets, has become a key component of research at Stanford.  This includes both the management of data and data sets created during the research process, and the acquisition and sharing of data sets for use in research. 

Data management

Funding agencies are emphasizing and expanding their requirements for the inclusion of data management plans as part of grant proposals, and grants may be denied where researchers fail to provide for the long-term maintenance of their research data.  Copyright concerns are one of the significant issues that researchers must address in developing these plans.  The Stanford Libraries offers tools and support for creating data management plans (http://library.stanford.edu/research/data-management-services/data-management-plans). 

Under university policy, when researchers generate data in the course of their Stanford work, the data sets remain under their control but are owned by the University.  Researchers who intend to commercially license out data sets created in the research process must coordinate with the Office of Technology Licensing (OTL) (https://otl.stanford.edu). 

Acquisition of data sets

Researchers must ensure that data sets they acquire for use in their research are appropriately licensed-in to allow research results to be shared, and they must carefully monitor license terms of data sets they bring in to Stanford.  Stanford Libraries provide data management services for all Stanford researchers (https://library.stanford.edu/research/data-management-services) and can also assist in the acquisition of data sets in ways that are compliant and allow reuse.  

Other departments on campus that may participate in agreements for the acquisition, maintenance, and sharing of research data sets include:

• Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) – for data agreements with government or non-profit entities (https://doresearch.stanford.edu/research-offices/office-sponsored-research-osr)
• Industrial Contracts Office (ICO) – for data agreements with industry for research purposes (https://ico.stanford.edu)