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Dear all,

I have read with interest the report and followed some of the PREPARDE discussion.
On this specific point:

> the re3data minimum requirements are met, i.e. that the access to the data
> and repository as well as the terms of use must be clear

I would like to note that metrics and minimum requirements are more granular in life science, environmental and biomedical areas, where I operate. More info is below for those interested.

Kind regards,
Susanna

***
As an activity of the BioSharing project (http://biosharing.org), we have been working with the International Society for Biocuration on a community-define, uniform and generic description of core attributes of biological databases, namely bioDBcore (http://biodbcore.org). This is clearly geared for life science, environmental biomedical areas, but potentially extendable to other areas. Please, see http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2010/11/17/nar.gkq1173.abstract

One of the core bioDBcore descriptor is a reference to community-standards (minimum information checklists, terminologies and exchange formats) that the database implements. In bioscience there are hundreds of these standards, see http://www.biosharing.org/standards.

But why it is important to know if a database implements community-standards?  In their guidelines for reporting/sharing datasets, many Journals and funding agencies refer to (i) use of community-standards and (ii) submission to well established public repositories. But making such connection and decision is not easy as existing catalogues of databases do not necessary make clear what standards are used.

With BioSharing and the International Society for Biocuration we are doing this and also partner with F1000 Research, GigaScience and the recently announced NPG's Scientific Data - I also work for - http://www.nature.com/scientificdata
***
-- 
Susanna-Assunta Sansone, PhD
uk.linkedin.com/in/sasansone

University of Oxford e-Research Centre
 Associate Director, PI and Team Leader
 isacommons.org | biosharing.org

Nature Publishing Group
 Consultant, Scientific Data
 www.nature.com/scientificdata
--


On 22/05/2013 09:24, Angus Whyte wrote:
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I would also like to thank Kevin and Hans for the very extensive and helpful comments on the PREPARDE project draft guidelines on repository accreditation. To remind everyone these are at http://bit.ly/ZhYHZl

Taking the context for the guidelines as stated in the third paragraph "... a resource for journal editors who wish to determine quickly and easily whether a repository is suitable to hold the data which is the basis of a scientific publication", I'd like to respond on one of the listed criteria Kevin talks about, which in the draft guidelines is stated as: "For data publication, repositories must:....provide information on numbers of data packages or files deposited and how frequently these are accessed by repository users.

I know the intention here was to capture the point made in several project workshops that journals and authors currently base decisions on whether a repository is worthwhile on how well used it is.  It seemed relevant to add this to the criteria. The takeup of a repository in the community it aims to serve is relevant to sustainability, although accreditation on a trust standard will not necessarily tell anyone that. So it was with that in mind, and also to give depositors as well as journals a metric of individual data package usage, which is probably essential for both. Also
it is consistent with output repository practice of making access statistics on article downloads available.

The criterion could be better expressed as ' repositories must publish information to enable journals and depositors to assess its take-up in the community it aims to serve, and the level of access to deposited items, e.g. how frequently these are accessed by repository users"

In either that or the original wording, is this relevant to support a decision on repository recommendation in this context? If so, should it be 'important' or 'mandatory' for data repositories to publish this information?

Angus


-- 
Dr Angus Whyte
Senior Institutional Support Officer
Digital Curation Centre
University of Edinburgh
Crichton St, Edinburgh EH8 9LE
+44-131-650-9986



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