One of the foundations of scholarship is access to past research. In order to make sure your scholarship is available for generations to come, it is wise to spend some time evaluating where you deposit both your scholarly output and the data you gathered during your research. If you created a robust data management plan, you probably already know how you will preserve your data. While your journal or book may be well preserved by a company, your data is much more likely to be lost.
The Missouri State University Libraries has a great deal of experience in preserving print, digital, and other types of information. Feel free to contact Joshua Lambert at the Missouri State University Libraries if you would like to discuss preservation issues in more detail.
If your research data has an open license with it, then copyright will not get in the way of future researchers. While facts cannot be copyrighted in the United States, the creativity of organizing that data in a database or other form can be copyrighted. The Open Data Commons has created some tools to help you quickly assign open licenses to your data.
Following are some tips to help you preserve your data.