Data Citation and Publication for Researchers.

Abstract

Data are a fundamental part of the research process. Without them, it is impossible to verify the results of published studies or reproduce the science. Yet modern datasets are so large that it is not practical for the data to be published as part of the research article, or in the supplementary materials, and so the data must be kept and managed in a suitable repository. This separation of data from article means that if the scientific record is to be maintained, the links between the article and the dataset must be kept. Data citation provides a method of obtaining academic credit for the work put into creating, managing and curating a dataset. With a formal data citation, it becomes possible to piggy-back on existing methods for counting the impact of journal papers, providing an indication of how cited (and therefore how used) a dataset is. There is a rising feeling in the scientific community that data can and should be treated as a first class research object, and those scientists who create them should get an appropriate level of academic credit for their work. Unsurprisingly, this requires a substantial cultural change, with buy-in from all levels of the scientific community, including the research funders. I