SCIENTIFIC DATA: a new open-access, data
publication from the Nature Publishing Group
LCLS/SSRL Users' Meeting, Oct 9, 2014
Andrew L. Hufton
Managing Editor, Scientific Data
Nature Publishing Group
andrew.hufton@nature.com
The Data Deluge
Photo by Shalom Jacobovitz, via Wikipedia
Or?
Photo by S. Müller, via WikiCommons
The Data Journal concept
• Data must be well described before others can use it
and benefit from it.
• Scientists who share data in a reusable manner deserve
credit through citable publications.
• Several journals now offer “data paper” article-types,
including GigaScience, F1000Research, Earth Systems
Science Data, Biodiversity Data Journal
4
Now Live!
Get Credit for Sharing Your Data
Publications will be indexed and citeable.
Open-access
Authors select from three Creative Commons licenses for the main Data
Descriptor. Each publication supported by CCO metadata.
Focused on Data Reuse
All the information others need to reuse the data; no interpretative analysis,
or hypothesis testing
Peer-reviewed
Rigorous peer-review focused on technical data quality and reuse value
Promoting Community Data Repositories
Not a new data repository; data stored in community data repositories
Data Descriptor
Focus on data reuse
Detailed descriptions of the methods and technical analyses
supporting the quality of the measurements.
Does not contain tests of new scientific hypotheses
Sections:
• Title
• Abstract
• Background & Summary
• Methods
• Technical Validation
• Data Records
• Usage Notes
• Figures & Tables
• References
• Data Citations
+ curated machine-readable metadata (ISA-Tab)
Joint Declaration of Data
Citation Principles by the
Data Citation Synthesis
Group, incl.:
- CODATA
- Research Data Alliance,
- Force11
Data Descriptor
relation with traditional articles
Methods and technical analyses supporting the quality of the measurements.
Do not contain tests of new scientific hypotheses
Synthesis
Analysis
Conclusions
What did I do to generate the
data?
How was the data processed?
Where is the data?
Who did what when
Overcoming barriers to data sharing
• Actively looking to publish cutting-edge
datasets in fields where data sharing is
rare.
• Helping authors find the best place to archive
their data
• Working to find better options for sharing BIG
data
Diverse Content
Publishing across the natural sciences
Biology
• Associated Nature
Article
• Data at figshare &
NCBI GEO
• Integrated figshare
data viewer
Environmental
•
•
•
•
New Dataset
Data in figshare
Code in figshare
Integrated figshare
data viewer
• Cited in Science
Chemistry
• New Dataset
• Computationallyderived
• Data at figshare
• Integrated figshare
data-viewer
Expanding in the physical sciences
• Growing list of physical sciences Editorial Board
members:
 Janos Hajdu, Uppsala University, Sweden
 Jim Halliday, STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, &
UKERC, UK
 Stephan C. Schürer, University of Miami, USA
 Matthew Todd, The University of Sydney, Australia
 Recent editorial at Nature Physics, “It's good to share”
Thanks!
Now launched!
Managing Editor, Scientific Data
Andrew L. Hufton
andrew.hufton@nature.com
Advisory Panel and Editorial
Board including senior researchers,
funders, librarians and curators
Supported by
Visit
nature.com/scientificdata
Email
scientificdata@nature.com
Tweet @ScientificData