1 (edited by Darwyn Sumner 02-01-2017 17:35:44)

Topic: Data uploads are publications

I would argue that datasets uploaded to a GBG are publications.
Researchers in the taxa concerned may not only wish to cite such publications but additionally the locating of such publicly available data may not only benefit their research but also raise the profile of the GBG (be it Gateway, Atlas or GBIF).
Accordingly it should be made possible for our uploads to be referenced as a publication.
I've attempted to treat a Gateway upload as a publication by adding it to ResearchGate. It keeps asking me to do things which aren't easy to comply with, for example it asks me "does the journal you published in support self-archiving?" and then requesting that I upload the full text of the publication. All well and good until you try that from the General tab of a dataset page (which seems to summarise the dataset sufficiently adequately for the purposes of a researcher) because there's no sensible way of obtaining a file from that page that fulfils their requirements to dump a file (Add full text).
Bridging this gap between GBG data and custom and practise in the world of research and published papers is urgently needed. I've come across many papers where the authors are clearly unaware of GBG data and think everything's to be found in museum collections - 2 centuries of naturalist's efforts ignored.
Give us DOIs and a means of turning our uploaded dataset metadata page into appropriately citable documents please.
{And a new section for the Atlas in this Forum)

2

Re: Data uploads are publications

A very good idea indeed Darwyn and one I would wholeheartedly support !!!

Steve

Steve J. McWilliam
www.rECOrd-LRC.co.uk
www.stevemcwilliam.co.uk/guitar/

3

Re: Data uploads are publications

I would have added that since we're using Darwin Core for the Atlases now, perhaps the descriptions of our datasets should conform to a published metadata standard - one devised by Darwin Core. But they don't seem to have got around to doing that yet (empty stub in a Wiki page is all I found)

4

Re: Data uploads are publications

Hello All,

Thanks for your posts and comments.  This will be fed back and any suggestions logged.

Kind Regards

Sarah

5 (edited by Darwyn Sumner 09-02-2017 09:25:47)

Re: Data uploads are publications

On the topic I raised above about authors being "unaware of GBG data and think everything's to be found in museum collections", here's an interesting example:
Page LM, Macfadden BJ, Fortes JA, Soltis PS, Riccardi G. 2015. Digitization of Biodiversity Collections Reveals Biggest Data on Biodiversity. . 65(9):841–42 https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/art … sci/biv104
They state that "The localities and dates of collection associated with these vouchered specimens provide the only large-scale, verifiable data available on native distributions of organisms and how those distributions have changed over time"
Their figures on museum specimens are of interest, 1500 museums in the US amounting to billions of specimens of which only 10% have been digitised and most of that only accessible to researchers at those institutions.
Dark data indeed.

6

Re: Data uploads are publications

Dark data as you say Darwyn.

Can I ask, do you/we have any data on how many of our British/UK Museums have had all their voucher specimens  digitised and how much of that data is available via the NBN Gateway ???

Steve

Steve J. McWilliam
www.rECOrd-LRC.co.uk
www.stevemcwilliam.co.uk/guitar/