Adding external data to the ARC

In this guide we recommend routines to properly add data from external sources to your ARC.

⚠️ This guide presents an interim solution. We are working on a more user-friendly implementation.

☑️ You are familiar with the ARC concept and ISA file types

Research projects rarely start out of the blue. Rather every project builds on previous findings and published or unpublished datasets.

To properly re-use and reference such a dataset, we recommend to add a study to your ARC. Every study by default comes with four parts:

• In the resources directory you can add the data (e.g. supplemental data files)
• In the protocols directory you can add notes on how you retrieved the data and from where.
• The study is registered in your ARC's isa.investigation.xlsx, which includes a section "STUDY PUBLICATIONS" for every study. In this section, you can add publication details (author, DOI, etc.) about the external data source.
• Finally, the README.md is a good option to let other viewers of your ARC know the source and details to the external study. This file is also prominently displayed in the respective folder in the DataHUB.

💡 The easiest way to add a new study is by using the ARC Commander's function:

💡 As with any other routine used by researchers to share scientific results and data, the responsibility to acknowledge scientific integrity, follow guidelines of good scientific practice, institutional guidelines for data handling, and respective laws for licensing, and – if applicable – to properly reference or cite the data source lies with the individual researcher.

💡 You can add datasets to the .gitignore file, if you are unsure about the conditions to reuse data from an external source.

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