Open Access Week

Open Access Data Repositories

Learn how to find open-access data sets from PANGAEA.

What is open-access data?

“Open access data is data that is available to use at no cost, freely accessible, and downloadable” (McMaster University [MU], 2022).

What PANGAEA?

PANGAEA is a long-standing open-access repository that provides anyone with access to credible environmental science data from around the globe. Specifically, this repository “has an almost 30-year history as an open-access library for archiving, publishing, and disseminating georeferenced data from the Earth, environmental, and biodiversity sciences” (Pangea, n.d.).

PANGAEA is hosted by Alfred Wegener Institute’s Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research and the University of Bremen’s Center for Marine Environmental Sciences (Registry of Research Data Repositories [RRDR], 2022).

Benefits of using PANGAEA

  • data sets are freely available for all researchers to download and use
  • data sets can be identified, shared, and cited using a DOI
  • data sets can be published in academic journals as supplemental materials
  • archived data sets are machine-readable and easily searchable
  • data sets are digitally preserved for long-term availability to researchers

Find other Open Access Data Repositories

PANGAEA is just one OA data repository available to you. Find other repositories:

Written by Meghan Staal, Library Services Technician.

References

McMaster University. (2022). Open access data repositories. https://mira.mcmaster.ca/research/open-access-data-repositories

Registry of Research Data Repositories. (2022). PANGAEA. https://www.re3data.org/repository/r3d100010134

PANGAEA. (n.d.). About. https://www.pangaea.de/about/