Research data archiving is the long-term storage of scholarly research data, including the natural sciences, social sciences, and life sciences. The various academic journals have differing policies regarding how much of their data and methods researchers are required to store in a public archive, and what is actually archived varies widely between different disciplines. Similarly, the major grant-giving institutions have varying attitudes towards public archiving of data. In general, the tradition of science has been for publications to contain sufficient information to allow fellow researchers to replicate and therefore test the research. In recent years this approach has become increasingly strained as research in some areas depends on large datasets which cannot easily be replicated independently.
Data archiving is more important in some fields than others. In a few fields, all of the data necessary to replicate the work is already available in the journal article. In drug development, a great deal of data is generated and must be archived so researchers can verify that the reports the drug companies publish accurately reflect the data.
The requirement of data archiving is a recent development in the history of science. It was made possible by advances in information technology allowing large amounts of data to be stored and accessed from central locations. For example, the American Geophysical Union (AGU) adopted their first policy on data archiving in 1993, about three years after the beginning of the WWW.[1] This policy mandates that datasets cited in AGU papers must be archived by a recognised data center; it permits the creation of "data papers"; and it establishes AGU's role in maintaining data archives. But it makes no requirements on paper authors to archive their data.
Prior to organized data archiving, researchers wanting to evaluate or replicate a paper would have to request data and methods information from the author. The academic community expects authors to share supplemental data. This process was recognized as wasteful of time and energy and obtained mixed results. Information could become lost or corrupted over the years. In some cases, authors simply refuse to provide the information.
The need for data archiving and due diligence is greatly increased when the research deals with health issues or public policy formation.[2] [3]
NB: Biotropica is one of only two journals that pays the fees for authors depositing data at Dryad.
In the United States, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has tightened requirements on data archiving. Researchers seeking funding from NSF are now required to file a data management plan as a two-page supplement to the grant application.[4]
The NSF Datanet initiative has resulted in funding of the Data Observation Network for Earth (DataONE) project, which will provide scientific data archiving for ecological and environmental data produced by scientists worldwide. DataONE's stated goal is to preserve and provide access to multi-scale, multi-discipline, and multi-national data. The community of users for DataONE includes scientists, ecosystem managers, policy makers, students, educators, and the public.
The German DFG requires that research data should be archived in the researcher's own institution or an appropriate nationwide infrastructure for at least 10 years.[5]
The British Digital Curation Centre maintains an overview of funder's data policies.[6]
Research data is archived in data libraries or data archives. A data library, data archive, or data repository is a collection of numeric and/or geospatial data sets for secondary use in research. A data library is normally part of a larger institution (academic, corporate, scientific, medical, governmental, etc.). established for research data archiving and to serve the data users of that organisation. The data library tends to house local data collections and provides access to them through various means (CD-/DVD-ROMs or central server for download). A data library may also maintain subscriptions to licensed data resources for its users to access the information. Whether a data library is also considered a data archive may depend on the extent of unique holdings in the collection, whether long-term preservation services are offered, and whether it serves a broader community (as national data archives do). Most public data libraries are listed in the Registry of Research Data Repositories.
In August 2001, the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) published a report[7] presenting results from a survey of ARL member institutions involved in collecting and providing services for numeric data resources.
Library service providing support at the institutional level for the use of numerical and other types of datasets in research. Amongst the support activities typically available:
The following list refers to scientific data archives.
In the social sciences, data libraries are referred to as data archives.[8] Data archives are professional institutions for the acquisition, preparation, preservation, and dissemination of social and behavioral data. Data archives in the social sciences evolved in the 1950s and have been perceived as an international movement:
By 1964 the International Social Science Council (ISSC) had sponsored a second conference on Social Science Data Archives and had a standing Committee on Social Science Data, both of which stimulated the data archives movement. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, most developed countries and some developing countries had organized formal and well-functioning national data archives. In addition, college and university campuses often have `data libraries' that make data available to their faculty, staff, and students; most of these bear minimal archival responsibility, relying for that function on a national institution (Rockwell, 2001, p. 3227).[9]