What are the differences between ICPSR’s deposit options?

There are three main deposit options available via ICPSR to data producers: 

1. Curated (no cost to the depositor): Anyone (whether at an ICPSR member institution or not) can deposit their data into ICPSR's General Archive at no cost. ICPSR uses its membership fees to pay for the professional curation of the data. Because membership fees cover curation costs, the curated data are made available to secondary users at member institutions at no cost. Other secondary users at non-member institutions can pay to access the data.

2. Curated (depositor or sponsor pays for curation): Anyone can deposit data into the General Archive as explained above and may choose to pay for the curation services using a grant or other funding. ICPSR also has a number of sponsored archiving projects where the cost of curation services is covered by the project funding. In both cases, the curated data are made available to members AND non-members at no cost. Sponsored archiving projects may have additional selection criteria they use to determine if data curation will be paid for by the sponsor. 

3. Self-published: openICPSR is a user-controlled, self-publishing archive. Anyone can deposit data in openICPSR but the data are not curated. The uncurated data in openICPSR are immediately available to all secondary users at no cost and are available in the exact condition and format in which they are submitted by the depositor. This is a popular option for replication data and to meet journal requirements for open access data. Data in openICPSR may be selected for curation services by ICPSR staff.