An Institutional Research Data Repository and Digital Object Identifiers for SARAO Radio Astronomy, Fundamental Astronomy, and Geodesy Datasets

Abstract

In recent years, researchers, librarians, publishers and funding bodies have come to realise the importance and potential of using Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) for data in support of Wilkinson’s FAIR principles of data. The DOI system was originally developed to provide persistent linking for citable and traceable referencing to static datasets in scholarly literature. Nowadays, DOIs and other persistent identifiers can also be assigned to dynamic datasets and data products to recognise, acknowledge and reward the originators of the data. Metrics available for data citation allow data providers to demonstrate, justify, motivate and account for the value of the data they have collected. The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) has become interested in using dataset DOIs as a tool to accelerate its data visibility, discovery, usability, usage reporting and acknowledgement. A pilot project for the attribution of DOIs to SARAO’s datasets in radio astronomy, fundamental astronomy and geodesy is currently underway. Objectives of this project are to develop user-friendly systems towards data discovery and visibility. This will ensure usability and acknowledgement via the DOI-linked citation, whilst also providing SARAO with a usage reporting tool. In addition, methods of linking our publications with our datasets are being devised. We present progress made with the pilot project. We also wish to create awareness of the advancement of open data and open science platforms in radio astronomy, fundamental astronomy and geodesy, both locally and internationally, by making use of DOIs as persistent identifiers.