Data Papers as a New Form of Knowledge Organization in the Field of Research Data

Abstract

Associate professor in information sciences, ORCID 0000-0002-4000-807X Abstract Data papers have been defined as scholarly journal publications whose primary purpose is to describe research data. Our survey provides more insights about the environment of data papers, i.e. disciplines, publishers and business models, and about their structure, length, formats, metadata and licensing. Data papers are a product of the emerging ecosystem of data-driven open science. They contribute to the FAIR principles for research data management. However, the boundaries with other categories of academic publishing are partly blurred. Data papers are (can be) generated automatically and are potentially machinereadable.

A streamlined workflow for conversion, peer review, and publication of genomics metadata as omics data papers

“…This streamlined metadata conversion workflow was first introduced in several of Pensoft's biodiversity journals and then in journals by other publishers, such as Nature's Scientific Data, PLoS One, BMC Ecology , and many others [ 64 ]. Since 2011, nearly 300 data papers have been published in Pensoft's journals and there is a steady uptake of this type of publication not only among Pensoft's journals but among journals of other publishers too [ 65 ]. Data papers are no longer an abstract idea but have already been practically implemented in multiple journals in different disciplines.…”

Trustworthy or not? Research data on COVID-19 in data repositories

“…Quality control of data papers—some kind of peer review—always implies an evaluation of the datasets themselves and their respective repositories. But for the moment, this new way of academic publishing represents a very small and marginal part of the overall research output ( Schöpfel et al, 2019 ).…”

The changed – and changing – landscape of serials publishing: Review of the literature on emerging models

“…PLOS journals even require authors to make all data, necessary to replicate their study's findings, publicly available without restriction at the time of publication through various acceptable data‐sharing methods so that publication is conditional on compliance with this policy (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability). Moreover, there are journals exclusively dedicated to data papers, whose primary purpose is to describe research data, such as Scientific Data or Earth System Science Data (Candela, Castelli, Manghi, & Tani, ; Schöpfel, Farace, Prost, & Zane, ).…”