Item types
There is a default list of item types available for items created in Figshare. There are also non-default item types that can be added to your Figshare portal if you use Figshare for Institutions. Non-default item types are not configurable on a per-account basis. To add these non-default item types, please contact support@figshare.com.
The below list also indicates which item types are indexed by Google Scholar, Google Dataset Search, and Google Book Search.
| Figshare Item Type | Default | Indexed by | Description |
| Figure | Yes | Figures are generally photos, graphs and static images that would be represented in traditional pdf publications. | |
| Media | Yes | Media is any form of research output that is recorded and played. This is most commonly video, but can be audio or 3D representations. | |
| Dataset | Yes | Google Dataset Search | Datasets usually provide raw data for analysis. This raw data often comes in spreadsheet form, but can be any collection of data, on which analysis can be performed. |
| Poster | Yes | Poster sessions are particularly prominent at academic conferences. Posters are usually one frame of a powerpoint (or similar) presentation and are represented at full resolution to make them zoomable. | |
| Journal contribution | Yes | Scholar | Any type of content formally published in an academic journal, usually following a peer-review process. |
| Conference contribution | Yes | Scholar | Any type of content contributed to an academic conference, such as papers, presentations, lectures or proceedings. Note: only indexed if there is one abstract. |
| Preprint | Yes | Scholar | Preprints are manuscripts made publicly available before they have been submitted for formal peer review and publication. They might contain new research findings or data. Preprints can be a draft or final version of an authors’ research but must not have been accepted for publication at the time of submission. |
| Presentation | Yes | Academic presentations can be uploaded in their original slide format. Presentations are usually represented as slide decks. Videos of presentations can be uploaded as media. | |
| Thesis | Yes | Scholar | In order to distinguish essays and pre-prints from academic theses, we have a separate category. These are often much longer text based documents than a paper. |
| Software | Yes | Code as a research output can either be uploaded directly from your computer or through the code management system GitHub. Versioning of code repositories is supported. | |
| Book | Yes | Google Book Search and Scholar | Books are generally long-form documents, a specialist work of writing that contains multiple chapters or a detailed written study. |
| Online resource | Yes | Any type of resource available online. | |
| Chapter | No | Scholar | Division of a book, which in a scholarly context usually treats a part of a larger subject in a stand-alone manner. |
| Peer review | No | The evaluation of a scholarly work, usually performed before formal publication by a number of field experts. | |
| Educational resource | No | Any type of content useful for teaching, learning or research in an educational context. | |
| Report | No | Scholar | A formal account of an observation, investigation, finding, activity or any other type of information. |
| Standard | No | A formal and detailed description of an invention, protocol or workflow; examples include patents, patent applications and requests for comments (RFC). | |
| Composition | No | A creative work in a fine art context, such as a piece of music or a poem. | |
| Funding | No | A resource describing various aspects related to the funding of a research venture, such as funding agency, amount, grant name or recipient. | |
| Physical object | No | A record describing any type of physical object, such as a work of art, instrument or archaeological artefact. | |
| Data management plan | No | Data management plans are an integral part of a research venture, describing what data will be collected or created and how, and also the means by which it will be shared and preserved. | |
| Workflow | No | Resource describing protocols, procedures, methods or activities part of a scientific experiment. | |
| Monograph | No | Google Book Search and Scholar | A non-serial scholarly publication (either one or multiple finite volumes). |
| Performance | No | The presentation of a theatrical play or music concert within a fine art context. | |
| Event | No | Information on the purpose, location, duration, agents or effects of an occurrence such as a conference, performance, natural phenomenon, or conflagration. | |
| Service | No | A system supplying a research need, such as a facility, instrument or API. | |
| Model | No | A formal representation of any system, entity, phenomenon or structure useful in the research endeavour. | |
| Registration | No | Description of a research project, including, for example, the hypotheses, data collection plans, or scripts, provided before any actual experiment or analysis is performed. |
