This document discusses the challenges of depositing data in both generalist and specialist repositories. It notes that while specialized repositories are best for standardized data, many datasets fall into the "long tail" of less common types. Generalist repositories can accommodate long-tail data but require redundant metadata. The document explores how to link data and publications between repositories and assess data quality. It concludes that promoting standards for interoperability between repositories and rallying the research community around those standards could help address these issues.

1. The blessing and the curse:
handshaking between
general and
specialist data repositories
Hilmar Lapp (NESCent), Todd Vision (UNC Chapel Hill)
GSC 15 Conference, Bethesda, MD
April 22-24, 2013

2. > 180 for
biological sciences
alone

3. Which data goes where?
Which is required?

4. Addressing the long tail of orphan data
Volume
Rank frequency of datatype
Specialized repositories
(e.g. GenBank, GBIF)
Orphan data
After Heidorn (2008) http://hdl.handle.net/2142/9127
Many datasets belong to the
long tail. Though less
standardized, they can be rich in
information content and have
unique value

5. General purpose repositories
cater to long-tail data

6. General purpose repositories
cater to long-tail data

7. And that’s aside from
the proverbial Babel of
data formats.

8. Where does this leave
the user?

9. Where to deposit what, and how?

10. Enter Publication:
Please enter your publication:
Publication:
Enter Publication:
Metadata
has to be
provisioned
redundantly

11. How to concisely link to
the supporting data?

12. Given the article, how
do I find the data?

14. Given a data
record, how
do I find
related data?

15. How do I assess quality
and fitness for purpose?

16. Lessons from
Dryad/TreeBASE
handshaking

17. • The End
 To make data archiving and reuse a standard part of scholarly communication.
• The Means
 Integrate data archiving with the process of publication.
 Make archiving easy and low burden for both authors and journals.
 Give researchers incentives to archive their data.
 Promote responsible data reuse.
 Empower journals, societies & publishers in shared governance.
 Ensure sustainability and long-term preservation.
 Work with and support trusted, specialized disciplinary repositories.
• The Scope
 Research data in sciences and medicine. (Early focus on evolution and ecology).
 Content must be complementary to existing disciplinary repositories.
 Data must be associated with a vetted publication (article, thesis, book chapter, etc.)
 Associated non-data content (e.g. software scripts, figures) where appropriate

22. Lessons learnt
• Different priorities on deposit versus
metadata richness may void benefits
• Advantages of one-stop deposition and
when to use it are not obvious to users
• Custom-building handshaking
protocols is not robust, doesn’t scale

23. How to promote
• Minimum metadata
reporting standards?
• Uptake of community
specialist repositories?
• Archival of all long-tail
data?
• Linking between
repositories?

24. Data
Metadata
Links
Data
Metadata Links

26. Standards for repository
& web of data
interoperability

27. Standards for repository &
web of data interoperability

28. Promoting community
rallying around standards
?

29. Promoting community
rallying around standards
?

30. Repo: http://datadryad.org
Blog: http://blog.datadryad.org
Wiki: http://datadryad.org/wiki
Code: http://code.google.com/p/dryad
List: dryad-users@nescent.org
@datadryad
Dryad