Reuse-oriented data publishing: How to make the shared research data friendlier for researchers

Data repositories are an essential component of data infrastructure. This article explores their functionalities with accompanying examples with a focus on open, quantitative data sets. Based on researcher needs, the principle of data friendliness is presented, which involves data context (data characteristics), research context (individual circumstances and research settings) and the context of reuse paths (conditions allowing access to, understanding of and use of data). An examination of data context suggests that metadata and data enrichment are required to provide successful data context. Enrichment is also required for orientation of the research context to provide greater insights across data sets. Finally the article considers the reuse paths, and the say that data paths intersect human interaction and how these are being addressed by different repositories. The review concludes that data repositories need to focus on how to present data that is fully interoperable and allows for reuse as well as access.