Preservation, access and re-use of research data

A Publisher’s perspective……and how we can help

Joep Verheggen, ElsevierPARSE.insight workshop, Darmstadt, 22 September 2009

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Context

“…… increased availability of primary sources of data in digital form has the potential to shift the balance away from research based on secondary sources such as publications, thus positioning data as the central element in the scientific process.” (a statement from the Director of the Directorate General for Information Society and Media of the European Commission, 2008)

“If the raw data doesn’t form a central part of the scientific record then we perhaps need to start asking whether the usefulness of that record in its current form is starting to run out.” (from a blog called Science in the Open: http://blog.openwetware.org/scienceintheopen/2008/05/16/avoid-the-pain-and-embarassment-make-all-the-raw-data-available/

“..let us get back to the days where observational scientists could justify peer reviewed publication primarily on the basis of collection, description and reporting of high quality data sets (usually with some basic level of interpretation..” Quote taken from a discussion paper called “The

Risk-Reward Basis for Data Publication” (marine sciences, 2007)

“Problem = scientific community does not see online data as “publication” (from a presentation called: How to motivate scientists to publish data online, Mark J. Costello. June 2008)

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what makes researchers decide to publish data.. Simply put

motivation

infrastructure

process

Genetics Materials sciences

application

• reward & recognition• community culture• collaboration • instructions (& mandates)

• modelling & simulation • commercial applications• long term preservation• Re-evaluation

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What do scientist want…….

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What do Publishers currently do……

Instructions to authors in “Tetrahedron”

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Supplementary files are linked directly from

an article’s abstract page.

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Supplementary files are referenced within the article

text and linked via the article’s abstract page

using the doi.

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How do Publishers view research data in the context of “IPR”

The Publishing Industry (STM/ALPSP) position is:

It is also stated that:

“…..believe that, as a general principle, data sets, raw data outputs of research, and sets or subsets of that data should wherever possible be made freely accessible to other scholars” (Statement from STM & ALPSP, June 2006)

“….articles published in scholarly journals often include tables and charts in which certain data points are included or expressed. Journal publishers often do seek the transfer of or ownership of the publishing rights in such illustrations.., but this does not amount to a claim to the underlying data itself..”

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Research data and the Publisher’s Mission

Can we contribute to the data dissemination/retrieval process?

Storing, Linking Search, Discovery

Can we contribute to research workflows ?

Meta-data, collections, ontologies Visualization, mining, etc

Can we meaningful contribute to an “editorial” process for data?

Submission processes editorial organization, review

Publishers are committed to making genuine contributions to the research communities…..

• support to the scholarly communication process

• increased availability of research output

• increased citations to research output

• increased overall quality of research

• develop new means of knowledge discovery

• increase in the research efficiency

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Support through the journal networks and publishing platforms

General instructions to make available

available as supplementary information with the online article

Textual references to data repositories & datasets

Verbal instructions, limited support by editorial team

“More granular” definition of research data and supplementary information

Specific instructions & mandates how, when and where to submit, and how to cite.

Specific sustainable destinations for research data

Agreed formats & metadata requirements for data submission

Expand editorial teams with a “data-editor”

Hyper-linking between articles and (final) dataset destinations and v.v.

“Federated searching” Intelligent (contextual) referencing of

datasets in articles

Move from….. To……….

Note: a successful implementationrequires a combination of domainspecific and generic solutions

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working examples……..

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Visa versa

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Digital object identifiers – for data(sets)

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A possible solution

Creation of new and strenghtening of existing data centers.

Global access to data sets and their metadata through existing catalogues.

By the use of persistent identifiersThis and the following slides are taken from Jan Brase’s presentation

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Results

Citability of primary data High visability of the data Easy re-use and verification of the data sets. Scientific reputation for the collection and

documentation of data (Citation Index) Accepting the rules of good scientific practice Avoiding duplications Motivation for new research

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What the DOI System Can Do to Help

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Project

The German Research Foundation (DFG) has started the project Publication and Citation of Scientific Primary Data to increase the accessibility of scientific primary data, starting with the field of earth science.

The German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB) is now established as a “non-commercial” DOI-registration agency for scientific primary data as a member of the International DOI Foundation (IDF).

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Data and article

The DOI system offers an easy way to connect the article with the underlying data:

The dataset:G.Yancheva, . R Nowaczyk et al (2007)Rock magnetism and X-ray flourescence spectrometry analyses on sediment cores

of the Lake Huguang Maar, Southeast China, PANGAEA doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.587840 Is cited in the article:G. Ycheva, N. R. Nowaczyk et al (2007) Influence of the intertropical convergence zone on the East Asian monsoonNature 445, 74-77doi:10.1038/nature05431

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“Quasi mash-up” type of interaction

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Collaborations is the way to go…….

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In conclusion

Do Publishers recognise the importance of “data publishing” YES

Can Publishers help to get research data in the open? YES

Will Publishers help to improve the discoverability of data? YES

…..and YES: Solutions must be scalable & sustainable Existing capabilities should be used as much as possible We need to secure buy-in from the researchers and

research communities as well as the policy makers

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And finaly

Thank you for your attention……..j.verheggen@elsevier.com