Robert Hanisch edited Global Context.tex  about 10 years ago

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Other technical communities have addressed the challenges of access to digital data with a variety of approaches. Indeed, the biology community has implemented a number of differing approaches, for example, the approach taken in genetics versus that adopted by evolutionary biology.\cite{genbank,datadryad} In other disciplines, one subfield of thermodynamics has already adopted a very structured approach to archiving data, while the earth sciences community is embarked on an effort to define its approach.\cite{TRC,preparde} The astronomy community has dedicated international resources to the development of the Virtual Observatory, an infrastructure that enables global data discovery and access across hundreds of distributed archives.\footnote{http://ivoa.net} Despite the differing mechanics of implementation, all the approaches were rooted in a community-led effort to define the path best suited for that particular technical field.  In response to these trends, technical communities and publishers have developed and implemented Open Access journals and data archiving policies. Again, the field of biology appears to be leading the way on both these fronts. Perhaps the best example of this trend is Database: The Journal of Biological Databases and Curation, an Open Access journal dedicated to the discussion of digital data in biology.\cite{oxforddata} And in a recent development, Nature Publishing Group has announced the launch of a new open access journal, titled Scientific Data, which will be dedicated to publishing descriptions of scientific datasets and their acquisition.\cite{naturedata} It will initially focus on the life, biomedical and environmental science communities. The Public Library of Science recently strengthened its policy on data access: ``PLOS journals require authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception.''\footnote{http://www.plosone.org/static/policies.action#sharing}  In order to begin a dialogue on material data, NIST convened a workshop on digital materials data in May of 2012 under the auspices of MGI. The workshop identified a number of barriers that needed to be addressed during creation of a data strategy for materials, they include: Materials schema/ontology; Data and metadata standards; Data repositories/archive; Data quality; Incentives for data sharing; Intellectual property; Tools for finding data.\cite{Warren_2012} Notable among these for this discussion are data repositories and incentives for data sharing. Other disciplines, notably evolutionary biology, have demonstrated peer-reviewed journals have the potential to contribute solutions to these barriers to data sharing. \cite{Whitlock_2010}