Are Scientific Data Repositories Coping with Research Data Publishing?

Donatella Castelli ,Massimiliano Assante ,Atsushi Tani ,Leonardo Candela

doi:10.5334/dsj-2016-006

Donatella Castelli , Massimiliano Assante + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2016-006

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Abstract

Research data publishing is intended as the release of research data to make it possible for practitioners to (re)use them according to “open science” dynamics. There are three main actors called to deal with research data publishing practices: researchers, publishers, and data repositories. This study analyses the solutions offered by generalist scientific data repositories, i.e., repositories supporting the deposition of any type of research data. These repositories cannot make any assumption on the application domain. They are actually called to face with the almost open ended typologies of data used in science. The current practices promoted by such repositories are analysed with respect to eight key aspects of data publishing, i.e., dataset formatting, documentation, licensing, publication costs, validation, availability, discovery and access, and citation. From this analysis it emerges that these repositories implement well consolidated practices and pragmatic solutions for literature repositories. These practices and solutions can not totally meet the needs of management and use of datasets resources, especially in a context where rapid technological changes continuously open new exploitation prospects.

Highlights

Research data publishing (Klump et al, 2006; Lawrence et al, 2011; Costello et al, 2013) is an approach for sharing research data, i.e., it is intended as the release of data foruse by others
This article has surveyed the practices and approaches for data publishing promoted by generalist scientific data repositories, i.e., repositories accepting the publication of any type of dataset
In so doing we are relying on a sort of certification by publishers and communities, i.e., the repositories are expected to have a sufficient level of quality in exposing data and making them accessible for validation and re-use

Summary

Introduction

Research data publishing (Klump et al, 2006; Lawrence et al, 2011; Costello et al, 2013) is an approach for sharing research data, i.e., it is intended as the release of (research) data for (re)use by others. Scientific data repositories (Marcial and Hemminger, 2010) have a key role in science They are called to implement systematic data stewardship practices to foster adequate scientific datasets collection, curation, preservation, long term availability, dissemination and access. By analyzing the current solutions offered by existing repositories, this survey presents a systematic review of the state of the art with the aim of identifying gaps and suggest directions for improvements This survey focuses on “generalist” scientific data repositories, i.e., repositories that make no assumptions nor special arrangements for community- or data-type-specific aspects. For each of these aspects the study discusses the current practices and their limitations.

Repository Selection

Published Datasets: an Overview

Analysis

Dataset Formatting

Dataset Documentation

Dataset Licensing

Dataset Publication Costs

Dataset Validation

Dataset Availability

Dataset Discovery and Access

Dataset Citation

Findings