One of the outcomes from the COVID-19 pandemic is that data was shared openly, and scientists were able to respond swiftly with life-saving measures. These results have accelerated long-term efforts towards open science, with recent federal mandates that federally funded research be treated as a public asset. At the researcher level, this means that data management and sharing plans are required with many grant applications, and that data sharing plans are evaluated with the research. Outside of grant processes, there has been a growing trend of journals requiring data sharing for verification of results prior to publication.
The requirements and options for data sharing are going to depend on your specific project, but if you plan to share data, it is helpful to understand persistent identifiers, available data repositories, and data curation support available at UNL.