Data Access

The Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) is the largest and longest-running household panel study in Germany, with over 30,000 annual surveys since 1984. SOEP data are available to the scientific community through the SOEP-FDZ. In addition, the SOEP at DIW Berlin provides on-site access to sensitive regionalised SOEP data, enabling spatial analysis and the comparison of survey data with regional indicators.

The Leibniz Science Campus SOEP-RegioHub at Bielefeld University offers researchers convenient access to sensitive regionalised SOEP data via two terminal PCs in the X-Building at Bielefeld University. In addition, SOEP-RegioHub provides access to pre-processed regional indicators and advice for spatial research based on SOEP data. For more information on the services and to book terminal working hours, please contact Prof. Dr. Simon Kühne (Faculty of Sociology, SOEP-RegioHub, simon.kuehne@uni-bielefeld.de).

SOEP-RegioHub offers the technical infrastructure and services to use sensitive SOEPgeo data for teaching. For this purpose, a secure teaching server was initiated in cooperation with BITS. Teachers and students at Bielefeld University can access the server system and work with regionalised SOEP data and other spatial data sources in their courses. Statistical software including Stata and R (+ R-Studio) is installed. For more information on the use of the SOEPgeo Teaching Server in teaching, please contact Prof. Dr. Simon Kühne (Faculty of Sociology, SOEP-RegioHub, simon.kuehne@uni-bielefeld.de).

The Service Center for Medical Data Science is building a research data platform that can be used to collect, provide and archive/store data for individual research projects from various sources. The focus is on offering a needs-based IT infrastructure with connections to various systems. For example, aggregated or pseudonymised health care data from the clinics of the University Medical Center OWL are brought together for scientific research projects via the research data platform. The research data platform is also to be connected to the core facilities of the Medical School OWL, which are currently being developed, and will provide even more extensive support for data-based research projects.

Bielefeld University has introduced a research information system (FIS). A research information system is a database containing a continually updated, comprehensive directory of the researchers and research activities of an institution. The aim behind this pooling of data is, in particular, to make research output more visible through a comprehensive, context-related presentation of research activities, as well as to provide data in accordance with the specification of the Research Core Dataset (KDFS).

In addition, it should reduce the workload of researchers in documenting their research and provide them with support in presenting their scientific expertise to the outside world.

Research Core Dataset

The Research Core Dataset specifies a standard to be used when preparing data on research activities and the research context in which they were carried out. It stems from an initiative of the German Council of Science and Humanities and was adopted in 2016.

The Research Core Dataset is intended to facilitate both the internal use and the dissemination of quality-assured data on research activities, to reduce the effort required for repeated data collection and to ensure the comparability and connectivity of the data held, also in an international context.

The University Library's (UB) publication system (PUB) can also be used to view data publications published at the university.

The OpenAPC initiative collects and disseminates datasets on fees paid for open access publishing on GitHub under an open database license.

The initiative aggregates data on Open Access journal articles (APCs), Open Access books (BPCs), and data on articles published under transformative agreements (such as Springer Compact or Wiley DEAL). All data is provided voluntarily by universities and other HEI, funders or national consortia.

OpenAPC is located at the University Library Bielefeld. The project was launched in collaboration with the DINI working group Electronic Publishing. Since 2021 it is part of OpenAIRE Nexus.

The datasets provided include metagenomic sequence data of biogas-producing microbial communities, known as microbiomes. These data were generated by the CeBiTec research groups "Genome Research of Industrial Microorganisms" (Prof. A. Pühler) and "Computational Metagenomics" (Prof. A. Sczyrba).

The process involves isolating the total DNA of the microbiomes and sequencing it using advanced high-throughput methods. Bioinformatics techniques are then used to determine the composition and genetic functions of these complex microbiomes. Recent advances have enabled the reconstruction of complete genomes from the metagenomic data. The results have been extensively published, and the datasets are available in standard formats in established databases such as the NCBI Nucleotide Database and the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) database, supporting large-scale research on biogas-producing microbiomes. For more information, refer to the review article: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00253-018-8976-7.

The "Computational Metagenomics" group also provides bioinformatic workflows and platforms for efficient processing of datasets, including cloud resources (e.g., de.NBI Cloud - https://www.denbi.de/cloud). For further details, contact Prof. A. Pühler, Dr. A. Schlüter, or Prof. A. Sczyrba.