[Open-access] Nature Scientific Data platform and doing science with open data

[Jenny Molloy]

Hi All

Many of you will have seen this recent press release, but for those who
haven't:
http://www.nature.com/press_releases/scientificdata.html

This ties in with a recent blog post on doing science with open data, from
Tom Heath at the Open Data Institute, looking at the questions
* What are the implications of 'doing science' with open data?
* What changes are required in how we approach scientific methods and
findings based on open data?
http://www.theodi.org/blog/on-data-science-with-open-data

Your thoughts and comments welcome!

Jenny

NPG to launch Scientific Data to help scientists publish and reuse research
data

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) today is pleased to announce the Spring 2014
launch of Scientific Data. Open for submissions this autumn, Scientific Data is
a new open-access, online-only platform for the publication of descriptions
of scientifically valuable datasets. Scientific Data will initially focus
on experimental datasets from the life, biomedical and environmental
science communities with future plans to expand to other fields in the
natural sciences.

Scientific Data will introduce and publish a new type of content called
Data Descriptors: peer-reviewed, scientific publications that provide
detailed descriptions of experimental and observational datasets. Data
Descriptors will be a combination of traditional scientific publication
content and structured information curated in-house, and are designed to
maximize reuse and enable searching, linking and data mining. Data
Descriptors may be associated with articles from a broad range of journals.

"Over recent years researchers, funders and learned societies alike have
been calling for new ways to make scientific research, and research data,
more available, reusable and reproducible," says Jason Wilde, Nature
Publishing Group Business Development Director. "Scientific Data's central
mission is to help foster the sharing and re-use of the data underpinning
scientific research."

"Scientific Data will allow for the formal peer-review, publication and
citation of data sets and will provide a real opportunity to promote open
data and promote the re-use of data held by NERC and other research
organisations," says Mark Thorley, Head of Science Information at the
Natural Environment Research Council and Chair of the Research Councils UK
Research Outputs Network.

Scientific Data gives credit through a citable publication, for depositing
and sharing research data. Data Description will be accessible and
searchable via the Scientific Data online data platform, under a Creative
Commons license. The actual data files will be stored in one or more
public, community-recognized systems. The full release of Data Description
and associated data will be verified as part of the peer-review process.
Where a community recognized repository does not exist, Scientific
Data supports
the deposit of the data into a more general repository such as Dryad and
Figshare. All accepted data descriptors will be published on payment of an
article-processing charge (APC) that will also cover the Data Description
curation process.

Susanna-Assunta Sansone, Associate Director and Principal Investigator at
the University of Oxford e-Research Centre, has worked with the NPG team
for the past months to define the Data Description’s concept; she has now
been appointed Honorary Academic Editor of Scientific Data. She will work
closely with the Advisory Panel which is comprised of senior scientists,
data repository representatives, bio-curators, librarians, and funders who
guide the policies, standards, and editorial scope.

"The ongoing conversation around data curation, sharing and publication has
become increasingly exciting as various organisations have moved to
encourage and in some cases support the sharing and reuse of data in
context," says Honorary Academic Editor Sansone. "To inform the internal
development of Scientific Data, I will continue to stay abreast of the
fast-paced fields of data management and scholarly communication."
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