Researchers’ potentially life-changing work should never be held up because they do not have a way to store, manage, and share their data. To prevent this roadblock, IEEE DataPort developed a comprehensive data solution that fully supports open data initiatives and gives individuals and institutions the opportunity to manage, share, access, and store research data. With IEEE DataPort, researchers can accelerate scientific advancements by supporting research reproducibility and adding to the broad availability of datasets among the interactive data community. 

Since its inception in 2016, IEEE DataPort has grown rapidly both in uploaded datasets and the number of users. As of October 31, 2021, IEEE DataPort is hosting more than 2,700 datasets and has a user community of more than 1.5 million researchers, engineers, and industry experts (Figure 1).

Use cases and testimonials demonstrate how users are benefiting from the platform including:

• A researcher in New Delhi who is gaining citations and direct connections with other researchers regarding his research on rapidly analyzing and classifying crisis-related Tweets.
• A researcher who used IEEE DataPort for affordable and stable data storage for her research on fusion mechanisms for human activity recognition using automated machine learning.
• Researchers in Turkey using IEEE Dataport to reduce the time and resources required for data collection to store their research on predicting Coronavirus cases in Turkey by analyzing Tweets.

IEEE DataPort Data Solution Benefits

With IEEE DataPort, individual subscribers receive up to 2 TB of data storage per dataset at no cost and members of institution subscribers can store datasets up to 10 TB/dataset. Data can be uploaded in any format – from video, audio, and image files to CSV and TXT files. With this large amount of free data storage, researchers can easily meet research funding agency requirements for publishing data and making data available on an open access basis.

All datasets are stored on Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), a widely used Amazon Web Services (AWS) storage service that offers industry-leading scalability, data availability, security, and performance. Every IEEE DataPort subscriber is given an AWS access key to upload datasets to or download datasets directly from AWS. Since IEEE DataPort uses the AWS platform, individuals can use their other AWS computing resource subscriptions such as Amazon Athena, AWS data pipeline, or AWS Glue to perform more advanced analysis.

On IEEE DataPort, all datasets can be searched by topic, author, keyword, or dataset type as shown in Figure 2.

Each dataset is available for free download and can be copied, analyzed, or used for any other purpose under a CC BY license. Additionally, individual authors publishing their research in one of IEEE’s publications can easily integrate their datasets with any of the more than 134 journals currently integrated with the platform (and more publications will have integration capabilities added in 2022).

Researchers can also accelerate their research using the IEEE DataPort Data Competitions module. When hosting a data competition, users create a time-limited data challenge where a dataset and DataPort Competition instructions are uploaded by the competition initiator. Members of the global technical community, or a specific set of participants, can then join the Data Competition and provide their specific analyses or make predictions based on the dataset.

Additional Benefits for IEEE DataPort Institutional Subscribers

With an IEEE DataPort Institutional Subscription, universities, labs, research facilities, private and public companies, and government institutions can let their researchers focus on what they do best rather than the logistical details surrounding their work. IEEE DataPort Institutional Subscribers receive the following benefits:

• Five times more storage per dataset (10 TB vs 2 TB)
• Free downloads for both open access and non-open access datasets
• Save costs by leveraging IEEE DataPort rather than building your own data storage capability
• Help members of your institution meet funding agency requirements
• Custom usage dashboards that show datasets uploaded by anyone using the IEEE DataPort data solution in the institution
• The ability to brand datasets with the institution’s logo to increase exposure and recognition
• Create data management plans (DMPs) that outline how your researchers will store, manage, and make data accessible over time as required by many funding agencies

The Future of IEEE DataPort

IEEE DataPort is committed to IEEE’s mission of “Advancing Technology for Humanity.” IEEE DataPort has significantly evolved over the past five years, and it will continue to add new features. IEEE is currently working to ensure citations are shown on all published datasets. 

Visit IEEE DataPort to learn more about the platform, access datasets, or upload your research data.