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The Illinois Data Bank, a public access repository for publishing research data from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is celebrating its 10-year anniversary. 

Managed by the Research Data Service at the University Library, the Illinois Data Bank leverages the Library’s digital preservation system and operates within a robust policy framework that articulates the University’s commitment to providing persistent and reliable access to research data.  

The Illinois Data Bank has collected more than 1,200 datasets since 2016. 

“For the past decade, we’ve continually looked at the landscape to track emerging trends and policies so that we can be good stewards of past research while preparing for the future. We’re very fortunate at Illinois to have developed a well-integrated system and provide high-quality services that meet researchers’ needs,” said Professor Heidi Imker, head of the Research Data Service. “We’re proud of our work, and we continue to find the data deposited with us endlessly fascinating.” 

Over the past decade, researchers at Illinois have relied on the Illinois Data Bank to share, preserve, and showcase the data that underpin their scholarship. By depositing datasets in the repository, researchers have met funder and publisher data-sharing requirements, increased the visibility of their work through dataset DOIs and search engine indexing, and demonstrated their commitment to research transparency and reproducibility. The repository has also helped scholars ensure the long-term usability of datasets through expert curation services, making research data more accessible and understandable for future generations of researchers.