[open-science] BioSharing and re3data.org cooperate on the collection and description of data repositories

[Heinz Pampel]

Perhaps of interest to list members. Apologies for cross-posting.
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BioSharing and re3data.org cooperate on the collection and description of data repositories

Researchers need infrastructures that ensure a maximum of accessibility, stability and reliability in terms of working with and sharing data. Such infrastructures are being called research data repositories.

Today BioSharing and re3data.org - Registry of Research Data Repositories have agreed, in a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), to map and describe the emerging data repository landscape in a joint effort.

The cooperation between the partners will help to build a comprehensive overview of data repositories worldwide, to (i) assist users in the navigation and search of both services, and (ii) maximize cross-references and exchange of records between the two services. This cooperation aims at developing a vital ecosystem of research data repositories and at maximizing the accessibility of research data for scholarship and society.  

BioSharing is a registry of (i) community-developed, data and metadata reporting standards and (ii) databases linked to (iii) policies related to data preservation, management and sharing policies by funders and regulators in the life sciences (broadly covering biological, natural and biomedical sciences). BioSharing’s goal is to ensure these three type of resources are informative, discoverable and cross-linked, where appropriate, progressively adding metrics to monitor their use, development, evolution and integration. The description of the standards for describing and sharing life science experiments (minimal information checklists, terminologies and exchange formats) also leverages on the MIBBI portal - now part of this larger effort - and links to the entries in the BioPortal. Standards are progressively linked to public repositories described according to the bioDBcore community-defined description of their core attributes, leveraging on a collaboration with Nucleic Acids Research Database Issue and the DATABASE journals.
Website: http://www.biosharing.org

re3data.org - Registry of Research Data Repositories provides an overview on existing research data repositories. Since 2012re3data.org has indexed research data repositories offering researchers, funding organizations, libraries and publishers an overview of the heterogeneous research data repository landscape. Currently re3data.org lists over 600 research data repositories. Around 400 of these are described in detail using the re3data.org vocabulary. An innovative icon system helps researchers to easily identify an adequate research data repository for the storage of their research data. re3data.org is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Website: http://www.re3data.org

In the MoU both partners agree that for the life science communities, BioSharing will be the central submission point and service for data repositories, reporting standards and policies. For all other sciences, re3data.org will be the central submission point and service for data repositories.

To this purpose and as a first step of the cooperation re3data.orgwill integrate the database records from BioSharing, tracking provenance and progressively working together to ensure complementarity and harmonization of the metadata fields and icons.

Beyond that BioSharing and re3data.org will intensify their dialogue on common approaches and standards in the research data repository area.

Oxford, UK and Karlsruhe, Germany
November 2013

See also: http://www.re3data.org/2013/11/biosharing-and-re3data-cooperation/

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Heinz Pampel

Helmholtz Association
Helmholtz Open Access Coordination Office

re3data.org - Registry of Research Data Repositories

Helmholtz Centre Potsdam
GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences
Library of the Albert Einstein Science Park
Telegrafenberg, 14473 Potsdam
Tel: + 49 (0) 331-288 1948
E-Mail: pampel at gfz-potsdam.de
Web: http://oa.helmholtz.de | http://www.re3data.org
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