After the already significant spread of open publishing, i.e. so-called Open Access publishing, the time is coming for open publishing of scientific data.
The ministerial regulations in force today are still in the category of recommendations, but most researchers have already encountered the requirement to make research data available when applying for grants – for example from the National Science Centre. One of the grant documents is the Data Management Plan (DMP). It is often – wrongly – treated as another manifestation of bureaucracy, while it can be an extremely useful tool for the researcher. It helps to organise many things in the research workflow. One of the DMP's questions is the one about where and how to make scientific data available.
1. Scientific data repositories, i.e. places where scientific data selected by the author for sharing and storage can be available for a certain period of time. In order to be there, they should fulfil several conditions, the main ones being two: describing them well and logically (so-called metadata) and preparing them in such a form that a potential user can find them easily and open them without problems (according to FAIR principles).
Which repository will be best for my research data?
First rule – choose a domain-specific repository that is prestigious and well-known in the community. The second option is an institutional repository (of one university or research institution, or shared by several universities). The third option is a general repository, for different disciplines. In Poland, such a role is fulfilled by RepOD (Repository of Research Data) – associated with the ICM, but the number of so-called institutional collections (of a single university or research institution) embedded there is increasing. The best known general repository is Zenodo, but the list of repositories is still growing. The re3data database can help in the search for the most appropriate choice. You can search there both territorially and by domain.
Lists of repositories recommended by individual publishers can also be very helpful. Such information is provided, for example, by Springer, Elsevier, MDPI, Cambridge University Press czy PLOS One.
2. Supplementary data – scientific data included as so-called supplementary material in the manuscript sent to the publisher. They are sent as a separate file, but – this is a prerequisite – at the same time as the text of the publication, as they too will be subject to reviewer evaluation. Each publisher sets the rules for their publication, usually to be found in the author information section. For example: IOP Science, Springer, PLOS One.
Supplementary data may also be made available as a link on the author's home page.
3. Data journals – journals that do not publish articles (i.e. research results), but only so-called data desciptor or data papers. They contain a description of the research methodology used, how and why the research data was produced, and a listing of what is in the deposited dataset. A prerequisite for using this route is that the dataset has first been deposited in any scientific data repository. Publications in data journals are also indexed by Web of Science and are on the ministerial list (e.g. Scientific Data, Data in Brief, Geoscience Data Journal and others).
