Integration of Data and Publications - Alliance for Permanent Access

Report on Integration of Data and Publications Grant Agreement no.: 261530
2. Data published in supplementary files to articles
Implication for libraries/data centres: Ensure that article and supplementary files
stay together and that presentation and preservation mechanisms for
supplementary files are in place.
3. Datasets referenced from the articles and held in data centres and repositories
Implication for libraries/data centres: Distributed responsibility between article
holder (publisher, library) and data holder (data centre or publisher). Datasets
must be citable. The link between article and referenced data must be persistent.
Presentation and preservation mechanisms must be ensured. If the data resides
in a publisher‘s storage facility, perpetual access and eventually hand-off
mechanisms to either libraries or data centres must be developed.
4. Data published independently from written publications, e.g. in databases or
special data journals (“data publication”)
Implication for libraries/data centres: Support publication processes. Datasets
need curation and special treatment that considers the granularity and dynamics
of research data. Add metadata to datasets for documentation, to support re-use,
and to facilitate search and retrieval of data.
5. Data in drawers and on disks at the institute
Implication for libraries/data centres: Support scientists in preparing data
management plans at an early stage of the research process to avoid “isolated
data holdings” in the first place. Develop user friendly, low-threshold data
publication or data deposit services.
To summarise, libraries and data centres must support data publishing as a prerequisite
for data availability, including persistent identification/citation of datasets, and
solutions for data description, documentation and retrieval, which together facilitate
findability. They must also ensure long-term data archiving including data curation and
preservation as a condition for data interpretability and re-usability. Libraries and data
centres have started to enter into new alliances (as will be described in more detail in
the next section) to develop new strategies together or with other actors such as
publishers or research institutions. They can be involved on several levels, e.g. as active
service operator, as provider of a specific sub-service (e.g. assignment of persistent
identifiers), or as custodian of the results of such services.
4.4. Libraries and data centres engagement in new services and alliances
Durign the course of our research we found several new flagship projects and initiatives
where libraries and data centres are probing the integration of data and publications on
different levels. We present examples for persistent identifier and linking initiatives
(findability – DataCite), data publication and data management support (Availability &
interpretability – Dryad, Dataverse), and data archiving (re-usability – Pangaea).
In DataCite, libraries and data centres have allied to establish easier access to scientific
research data online. 60 The goal of the international consortium is to make research data
60 http://datacite.org/index.html
Opportunities for Data Exchange (ODE) –www.ode-project.eu 70