Preserve & Share

Archive research outputs, publish openly, obtain persistent identifiers, and maximize research impact

Make Your Research Accessible

The final phase of the research cycle focuses on preserving and sharing your outputs—making data, code, and publications openly available, citable, and preserved for the long term.

What you’ll find here: Strategies for archiving research materials, guidance on open access publishing, tools for obtaining persistent identifiers, and approaches to maximizing research impact.

Download Sharing Checklist View Publishing Guide

NoteLearn More: Publishing Open Research

Core Sharing Activities

Making research outputs accessible involves multiple interconnected practices.

Data Archiving

Common practices:

  • Depositing in appropriate repositories
  • Comprehensive metadata documentation
  • Appropriate licensing (CC0, CC BY)
  • Long-term preservation planning

Code Publishing

Researchers typically:

  • Publish to GitHub with documentation
  • Archive releases on Zenodo
  • Assign DOIs for citation
  • Add open source licenses

Open Access

Paths to openness:

  • Preprints and postprints
  • Gold open access journals
  • Institutional repositories
  • Green self-archiving

Persistent Identifiers

Ensuring findability through:

  • DOIs for data and code
  • ORCID for researchers
  • ROR IDs for institutions
  • Funder identifiers

Preservation & Sharing Strategies

Different research outputs require different sharing approaches and platforms.

Understanding when, where, and how to share research data.

FAIR Data

Making data findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable:

  • Rich metadata with keywords
  • Persistent identifiers (DOIs)
  • Standard file formats
  • Clear usage licenses

Open Sharing

When data can be publicly shared:

  • Discipline-specific repositories preferred
  • General repositories (Zenodo, OSF)
  • Complete anonymization required
  • Comprehensive documentation

Restricted Access

For sensitive data:

  • Metadata-only publication
  • Data Access Agreements
  • Controlled access repositories
  • Institutional secure storage

Repository Selection

Finding the right repository:

  • Search re3data.org for domain repositories
  • Check journal requirements
  • Consider long-term preservation
  • Verify DOI assignment
Before Depositing Data

Essential steps:

  • Complete anonymization of personal information
  • README file with study description and methods
  • Data dictionary with variable descriptions
  • Appropriate license (CC0 or CC BY recommended)
  • Ethics committee approval if required
Warning

Consult your institution’s data protection office before sharing human participant data.

Making research code citable and reusable.

GitHub to Zenodo Workflow

Standard workflow for citable code:

  1. Prepare Repository: Add README, license, example data
  2. Link to Zenodo: Enable integration via GitHub
  3. Create Release: Tag version (e.g., v1.0.0)
  4. Obtain DOI: Zenodo automatically archives and assigns DOI
  5. Cite: Include DOI in manuscript
NoteLearn More: Code Publishing

Code Publishing Tutorial (2.5h) - Complete guide to publishing research code

Security Checklist

Before publishing code:

  • Remove API keys, passwords, credentials
  • Remove personal or participant data
  • Review entire git history
  • Add simulated data if needed
  • Document dependencies clearly

Maximizing accessibility of publications.

Green Open Access

Free self-archiving:

  • Preprints before peer review
  • Postprints after acceptance
  • Institutional repositories
  • No publication fees

Gold Open Access

Publisher open access:

  • Immediate open license publication
  • Usually requires APC payment
  • Check institutional agreements
  • Request CC BY license
Understanding Versions

Preprint: Manuscript before peer review

  • Upload at submission for early feedback
  • Platforms: bioRxiv, medRxiv, arXiv, OSF Preprints

Postprint: Accepted manuscript (author’s version)

  • Upload after acceptance
  • Check journal policy via SHERPA/RoMEO

Published Version: Final formatted article

  • Usually requires payment or agreements
Managing Costs

Free Options:

  • Submit preprints to discipline servers
  • Upload postprints to institutional repository

Funded Options:

Ensuring findability and reuse.

ORCID

Your unique researcher identifier:

  • Links all publications and datasets
  • Persists across institutions
  • Create free at orcid.org

DOI

Digital Object Identifiers:

  • Assigned by repositories
  • Required for citation
  • Enables impact tracking

Data Licenses

Recommended:

  • CC0: Maximum reusability
  • CC BY 4.0: Attribution required
  • Avoid CC BY-NC (limits reuse)

Code Licenses

Common choices:

  • MIT: Permissive, widely adopted
  • Apache 2.0: Patent protection
  • GPL-3.0: Derivatives must be open
Author Contributions

Use CRediT taxonomy to specify contributions:

  • Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis
  • Methodology, Software, Visualization
  • Writing (original draft, review & editing)

Benefits: transparent contribution tracking, proper attribution, career development.

Understanding Licensing

“When thinking about what one can, must, or should do with Open Material and Open Data, one has to differentiate on the one hand legally-enforceable rules (which are handled with legal licenses) and, on the other hand, rules and standards of the scientific community. If a piece of work is in the public domain (e.g., a CC0 license) there is no legal requirement to give attribution, but as a scientist one still has the ethical obligation to give a proper citation.”

— PRO Initiative on Licensing

Resources:

Tools & Platforms

Data Repositories

Platforms for archiving research data with persistent identifiers and long-term preservation.

Finding the right repository: Use re3data.org to search 3,000+ research data repositories by discipline, data type, and certification standards.

Zenodo

Zenodo

General repository, free unlimited storage, DOI assignment

Read more

Accepts all research outputs. GitHub integration, version control, communities support. Ideal for code + data packages.

OSF

OSF

Project management with integrated storage and preprints

Read more

Complete research projects, preregistrations, file versioning, collaboration tools, DOI assignment.

Dryad

Curated repository for research data

Read more

Nonprofit, open data repository. Human curation, CC0 license for maximum reuse. Integrates with many journals.

Figshare

All research outputs with visualization

Read more

Free unlimited public storage. Figures, datasets, videos, code. DOI assignment, embeddable visualizations.

Harvard Dataverse

Open source research data repository

Read more

Free data sharing. Create your own dataverse (collection). Structured metadata, DOI assignment, versioning.

Open Data LMU

LMU research data repository

Supported at LMU
Read more

Dedicated repository for LMU research data. DOI assignment, long-term preservation, FAIR-compliant metadata.

Code Archives

Platforms for publishing and archiving research code with version control and DOI assignment:

GitLab

LRZ GitLab

Secure institutional Git hosting for active research

Supported at LMU
Read more

Private repositories during research. Enhanced security, CI/CD pipelines. Transfer to GitHub when ready to publish.

GitHub

GitHub

Version control and collaboration platform

Tutorial available
Read more

Industry-standard Git hosting. Integrates with Zenodo for DOI assignment. Issue tracking, Actions CI/CD.

Zenodo

Zenodo + GitHub

Automated archiving with DOI assignment

Read more

Link repository to Zenodo, create release, DOI automatically assigned. Long-term preservation guaranteed.

Preprint Servers

Share manuscripts before peer review to get early feedback and establish priority:

OSF

OSF Preprints

Multidisciplinary preprint service

Read more

All disciplines welcome. Integration with OSF projects, flexible requirements.

bioRxiv

Biological sciences preprints

Read more

Free hosting, DOI assignment, rapid posting. Widely recognized in life sciences and neuroscience.

medRxiv

Medical and health sciences preprints

Read more

Medical research focus with health screening. DOI assignment, linked to bioRxiv infrastructure.

arXiv

Physics, mathematics, computer science

Read more

Established 1991. Moderation system, LaTeX support. Standard in quantitative fields.

Publishing Support

Tools to find open access journals, check publisher policies, and manage researcher identity:

LMU Open Access

Open access consultation and APC support

Supported at LMU
Read more

Contact: open-access@ub.uni-muenchen.de. APC funding, publication agreements, rights management.

DOAJ

Directory of Open Access Journals

Read more

Quality-controlled directory of peer-reviewed OA journals. Publication charges, licensing, and editorial information for 20,000+ journals.

SHERPA/RoMEO

Journal self-archiving policies

Read more

Database of publisher policies. Check what versions you can archive and under what conditions.

Open Policy Finder

Check journal OA policies

Read more

Search tool for journal policies on open access, self-archiving, and funder compliance. Check rights retention options.

ORCID

Unique researcher identifier

Read more

Free account, publication tracking, portable across institutions, integrates with repositories and publishers.

Tip LMU Support Services

Open Access Publishing: open-access@ub.uni-muenchen.de for consultation on open access options, funding, and agreements.

Research Data Management: rdm@ub.uni-muenchen.de for repository selection, metadata standards, and preservation planning.

Resources:

Preservation Checklist

Before Publication:

At Submission:

After Acceptance:

Long-term: