A Digital Repository for Preservation and Sharing of Data Underlying Published Works in Evolutionary Biology

Duke University, Durham NC

Investigators

Abstract

PI: Kathleen Smith (Duke University awardee) Senior Personnel: Kristin Antelman (North Carolina State University; subawardee), William Michener, Mark Servilla (University of New Mexico; subawardee), Jane Greenberg, Todd Vision (University of North Caolina at Chapel Hill; subawardee), William Piel (Yale University; subawardee). Scientific progress depends on the ability of scientists to build upon each other's work. Despite widespread appreciation for the value of repositories that archive certain kinds of data (e.g. GenBank, PDB), most data associated with published papers in evolutionary biology and related disciplines fail to be archived in a public repository. Some of the obstacles to more widespread data archiving are sociological and some are technical. In collaboration with a consortium of journals and societies in evolutionary biology and related disciplines, NESCent will develop a general-purpose digital library, called Dryad, for the preservation, discovery, sharing, and reuse of data underlying publications. This project seeks to remove the key technical obstacles that currently prevent journals and societies from adopting a policy of mandatory archiving of data underlying publications. Some of the most important technical goals for Dryad include: (1) simplifying the process of data deposition during manuscript submission; (2) exchanging metadata with journal-required archives such as GenBank and TreeBase, and with metadata registries such as MetaCat; (3) assignment of globally unique, stable, resolvable identifiers for each data object, thus enabling data citations. Additional goals intended to increase the reliability and utility of Dryad include: (4) cataloguing of taxonomic, geographic, and other specialized metadata to facilitate data search, (5) implementation of web services to allow third-party data search and retrieval, (6) distributed data backup among several institutions. This project also seeks to support consortium members in their efforts to overcome the sociological obstacles to widespread data archiving. Dryad will be overseen by a board of stakeholders drawn from the consortium, who will set policy and plan for long-term financial self-sufficiency. This work will have a broad and transformative impact by enabling the preservation, discovery, sharing and reuse of data for an entire biological discipline an will serve as a model for the many other ?small science? disciplines facing similar challenges in data preservation and sharing. Through a variety of engagement activities, data archiving will be promoted within the research community and Dryad will serve as a catalyst for the continued development of data exchange standards. Dryad will be a publicly accessible, web based, database, promoting wide distribution of the result of scientific activities. Future scientists will be taught about the value of archived data through development of classroom resources for datasets of special educational value. Dryad development portal will be available at http://www.nescent.org/wg_digitaldata/