{"id":3420,"date":"2025-01-31T12:17:58","date_gmt":"2025-01-31T12:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/?p=3420"},"modified":"2025-01-31T12:17:58","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T12:17:58","slug":"the-transformative-impact-of-sunscholardata-on-research-and-open-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/2025\/01\/31\/the-transformative-impact-of-sunscholardata-on-research-and-open-science\/","title":{"rendered":"The transformative impact of SUNScholarData on research and open science"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since its inception, SUNScholarData<\/a> has been a game-changer in Stellenbosch University’s research landscape. As the institution’s official research data repository, SUNScholarData<\/a> provides a secure, structured, and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) platform for researchers to store, manage, and openly share their datasets with the research community and the broader academic ecosystem.<\/p>\n

SUNScholarData<\/a> has significantly contributed to the visibility of research outputs by ensuring that datasets are assigned unique Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs). This feature enhances the discoverability of research and promotes collaboration among scholars within and beyond the institution. Making data openly accessible allows researchers to boost citations and contribute to the global research community. Funders require proper research data management, and SUNScholarData<\/a> serves as a crucial tool in ensuring compliance. It aligns with institutional policies on Research Data Management (RDM) and supports researchers in adhering to best practices and fostering a culture of responsible data stewardship.<\/p>\n

Supporting Data Integrity and Long-Term Preservation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Preserving research data is vital for verification, replication, and continued inquiry. SUNScholarData provides a robust infrastructure that ensures long-term preservation, mitigating risks of data loss while maintaining the integrity of research outputs. This has proven particularly valuable for multi-year and interdisciplinary projects. Through training initiatives such as SunDMP Wednesdays and RDM workshops, Stellenbosch University Library has equipped emerging researchers with essential skills to manage their data effectively. By utilizing SUNScholarData, these researchers gain hands-on experience in data documentation, licensing, and sharing, positioning them for success in an increasingly data-driven academic environment.<\/p>\n

SUNScholarData growing in leaps and bounds<\/strong><\/p>\n

The diagram below shows the usage statistics of the SU institutional data repository since 2020-2021.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

SUNScholarData: Growth in views, downloads and depositors<\/p><\/div>\n

The annual statistics indicate a substantial increase in engagement and data contributions over the five-year period from 2020 to 2024. The number of views has grown significantly, from 7,960 in 2020 to 53,755 in 2024, demonstrating a heightened awareness and utilisation of the repository. Similarly, downloads have steadily increased from 1,764 to 7,152, suggesting that researchers and other stakeholders are actively accessing and utilising the shared datasets. The rise in depositors, from 15 in 2020 to 47 in 2024, highlights a growing culture of data sharing and open access research. These trends suggest a positive trajectory in research data management adoption, aligning with broader global movements towards open science.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s Next for SUNScholarData?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Integrating Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into SUNScholarData marks a significant step in aligning Stellenbosch University\u2019s research outputs with global sustainability priorities. By introducing an SDG selection feature, researchers will now be able to explicitly link their datasets to specific SDGs during submission. This initiative focuses on all the goals, from SDG 1 to SDG 17.<\/p>\n

Additionally, a retroactive tagging project will ensure that existing datasets are updated with relevant SDG metadata, while datasets harvested from external platforms like PLOS ONE and Mendeley Data will also be integrated where possible. This enhancement not only increases the visibility of the university\u2019s contributions to global challenges but also fosters collaboration, compliance with international frameworks, and opportunities for funding and recognition.<\/p>\n

Author: Xabiso Xesi<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since its inception, SUNScholarData has been a game-changer in Stellenbosch University’s research landscape. As the institution’s official research data repository, SUNScholarData provides a secure, structured, and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) platform for researchers to store, manage, and openly share their datasets with the research community and the broader academic ecosystem. SUNScholarData has significantly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9tu3H-Ta","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3420"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3424,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3420\/revisions\/3424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sun.ac.za\/libraryresearchnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}