Getting ready for the Data EraResearch Data from the Publishers Perspective

JISC WorkshopManaging Research Data

Birmingham 28-29 March 2011

Eefke SmitInternational Association of STM Publishers

Director, Standards and Technology

Submitting Data – how to do it, some examples

Common instructions to authors:

<The Journal> accepts electronic supplementary material (animations, movies, audio, large original data, etc.) which will be published in the online version only. This feature can add dimension to the article, as certain information cannot be printed or is more convenient in electronic form. 

<The Journal> accepts electronic supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, high-resolution images, background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article

In order to ensure that your submitted material is directly usable, please provide the data in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should submit the material in electronic format together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file.

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Some examples for external linking:• If your article contains relevant unique identifiers or accession numbers

(bioinformatics) linking to information on entities (genes, proteins, diseases, etc.) or structures deposited in public databases, then please indicate those entities according to the standard explained below.Authors should explicitly mention the database abbreviation (as mentioned below) together with the actual database number, bearing in mind that an error in a letter or number can result in a dead link in the online version of the article.Please use the following format: Database ID: xxxx 

Links can be provided in your online article to the following databases (examples of citations are given in parentheses):• GenBank: Genetic sequence database at the National Center for Biotechnical Information (NCBI) (GenBank ID: BA123456)• PDB: Worldwide Protein Data Bank (PDB ID: 1TUP)• CCDC: Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC ID: AI631510)• TAIR: The Arabidopsis Information Resource database (TAIR ID: AT1G01020)• NCT: ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT ID: NCT00222573)• OMIM: Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man (OMIM ID: 601240)• MINT: Molecular INTeractions database (MINT ID: 6166710)• MI: EMBL-EBI IntAct database for Molecular Interactions (MI ID: 0218)• UniProt: Universal Protein Resource Knowledgebase (UniProt ID: Q9H0H5)

Submitting Data – how to do it, some examplesSome well known journal titles:

Nature: An inherent principle of publication is that others should be able to replicate and build upon the authors' published claims. Therefore, a condition of publication in a Nature journal is that authors are required to make materials, data and associated protocols promptly available to readers without undue qualifications in material transfer agreements. Any restrictions on the availability of materials or information must be disclosed to the editors at the time of submission.

Cell: In general, Supplemental Information is limited to data and other materials that directly support the main conclusions of a paper but are considered additional or secondary support for the main conclusions, or cannot be included in the main paper for reasons such as space or file format restrictions.

And now: Effective November 1, 2010, The Journal of Neuroscience will no longer accept supplemental material for manuscripts. This change has been implemented to address problems that were discussed in a recent editorial. Authors may host supplemental material on an external web site and include in their article a footnote with a URL pointing to that site and a brief description of its contents. However, the reviewers and editors will not evaluate supplemental material when deciding whether a manuscript is acceptable for publication. Reviewers will be instructed to consider each submission as a self-contained research report.

Why no longer for the Jnl of NeuroScience ?

Online supplemental material initially seemed to bring only benefits. Making more information available is a good goal, and the financial costs of storing extra material electronically are small. However, it has become increasing clear that there are other costs to supplemental material as currently implemented. These costs have become obvious as the volume of supplemental material has grown.

Although The Journal has published electronically since 1996, supplemental material first appeared around 2003. Since then, the amount of material associated with a typical article has grown dramatically (Fig. 1). While the size of articles has grown gradually over the past decade, the supplemental material associated with a typical Journal article appears to be growing exponentially and is rapidly approaching the size of an article. The sheer volume of supplemental material is adversely affecting peer review.

Where do you currently store your research data ? (researchers/ multiple answers)

N = 1254 researchers

Source: Parse.Insight survey 2009

N=1202 researchers

Source: Parse.Insight survey 2009

Where would you be willing to submit your research data? (researchers/ multiple answers)

Where do you locate and access digital research data ? (researchers/ multiple answers)

Source: Parse.Insight survey 2009

N=1254

Do you think it is useful to link underlying research data with formal literature ? (researchers)

Source: Parse.Insight survey 2009

N=1187

If you (as a publisher) allow for the submission of digital research data with publications, is it possible for users of that digital research data to link to it?

Source: Parse.Insight survey 2009

N = 134 publishers, and approx 37 % of all journals

Do you have preservation arrangements for underlying digital data ? (publishers)

Source: Parse.Insight survey 2009

N = 172 publishers and approx 9050 journals (approx 40 %)

Many initiatives around to tackle the growing problem of access to and reuse of research data

STM is currently involved in the following initiatives onBest Practice Recommendations to handle Data:

1.NISO/ NFAIS working group on Supplemental Journal Article Materials2.CoData/ ICSTI: International Task Group on Data Citation Standards and Practices3.DataCite Working Group on Criteria for Datacentres4.ODE: Opportunities for Data Exchange5.Aparsen: Alliance for Preservation, Acces and Reuse of Records of Science – Excellence Network

Best practice conventions for handling underlying research data

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The role for publishers regarding preservation and underlying research data

• Require availability of underlying research material as an editorial policy• More careful treatment of submitted digital research data• Ensure it is stored, curated and preserved in trustworthy places• Ensure links (bi-directional) and persistent identifiers• Establish uniform citation practices• Establish common practice about peer review of data• Develop data-publications and quality standards

How to establish this ?• Collaborate across the information chain with funders, research institutes,

data centers and libraries• On identifiers, on certified repositories, on citability, on general policies for

quality ensurance and preservation

T.S. Eliot in The Rock (1934):

“Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

And would he live now, he might add:

“Where is the information we have lost in data ?”

It is Time to Take this Data Current…..

Questions or Comments ?

smit@stm-assoc.org