Scientific results are increasingly dependent on large complex data sets and models that transform these data. This is particularly true in the Earth and space sciences, where critical data increasingly provide diverse and important societal benefits and are used in critical real-time decisions...

Open, accessible, and high-quality data and related data products and software are critical to the integrity of published research. They ensure transparency and support reproducibility and are necessary for accelerating the advancement of science. In many cases, the data are one-time observations that cannot be repeated...

Unfortunately, not all key data are saved and even when they are, their curation is uneven and discovery is difficult, thus making it difficult for other researchers to understand and use the data sets.

To address this critical need

the Laura and John Arnold Foundation has awarded a grant to a coalition of groups representing the international Earth and space science community, convened by the American Geophysical Union (AGU), to develop standards that will connect researchers, publishers, and data repositories in the Earth and space sciences to enable FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) data – a concept first developed by Force11.org – on a large scale.

The initiative will accelerate

scientific discovery and enhance the integrity, transparency, and reproducibility of this data. The resulting set of best practices will include:

• metadata and identifier standards;
• data services;
• common taxonomies;
• landing pages at repositories to expose the metadata and standard repository information;
• standard data citation; and
• standard integration into editorial peer review workflows.

Partners of the initiative 

The Research Data Alliance (RDA) is partner of this initiative; the partnership also includes AGU and the Earth Science Information Partners, and has support from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature, Science, AuScope, the Australian National Data Service, and the Center for Open Science.

This effort will build on the work of The Coalition on Publishing Data in the Earth and Space Sciences, ESIP, RDA, the scientific journals, and domain repositories to ensure that well documented data, preserved in a repository with community agreed-upon metadata, and supporting persistent identifiers becomes part of the expected research products submitted in support of each publication. It is expected that the broader community will play a key role in the recommended guidelines and approach. A key goal is to make a process that is efficient and standard for researchers and thus supports their work from grant application through to publishing.

The partners will work

with major Earth and space science data repositories, publishers, editorial workflow vendors, researchers, and allied stakeholders to develop common standards and workflows for submission of data, connect repositories and publishers, develop and implement tools needed for search and discovery, and enhance quality peer review.

This process will help:

1. researchers understand and follow expectations regarding data curation;
2. publishers adopt and implement standard and best practices around data citation; and
3. make data discoverable and accessible, including to the public.

Source of this news: Research Data Alliance (RDA), on the 29th August 2017