Wiley partners with Figshare to enable data sharing

Posted: July 15th, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: found on the net, journals | Tags: , , , | Comments Off on Wiley partners with Figshare to enable data sharing
300-share-142455033_49ce50a89b_zAt the end of June, Figshare (an online digital repository where researchers can preserve and share their research outputs, including figures, datasets, images, and videos) announced a partnership with the publishing house Wiley to support authors who wish to openly share their data.
The background of this partnership can be located in a rapidly evolving issue that is shaping the future of scholarly publishing: funder mandates increasily require academics to make all of the products of their research available in a similar way that they make their papers available.
Examples cover the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the US (“[The NSF] expects PIs to share with other researchers, at no more than incremental cost and within a reasonable time, the data, samples, physical collections and other supporting materials created or gathered in the course of the work“) and the European Commission (“Beneficiaries [of the Horizon2020 programme, the 8th European Research Framework Programme] must also aim to deposit […] the research data needed to validate the results presented in scientific publications“).

Reactions in the publishing world on these developments ranging from data papers (such as Nature’s ‘Scientific Data’ or Elseviers ‘Data in Brief’) as well as the pioneering work from Open Access publisher PLOS, who have also mandated that all of the digital content associated with a publication be made open, either through the supplemental information section, or through open repositories like figshare.
Now the new partnership between Figshare and Wiley marks another steps in the reactions of the publishers on these requirements.

The new data sharing service is being piloted with a number of titles and will be rolled out over the next few months along with new data citation and data sharing policies. This will ensure that more data is accessible, sharable and reproducible under a creative commons license from articles on Wiley Online Library.

With growing requirements from funders of academic research for data to be open and accessible, the need for services that provide simple workflows for compliance is growing in importance. This partnership allows Wiley, as the experts in dissemination of academic content to continue to offer authors a comprehensive publishing service, while increasing the exposure of their research.  This partnership with Figshare also provides enhanced data preservation and citability.

Wiley previously completed an extensive study of the changing needs of academics as the research process evolves with new technologies. With the convergence of research and technology an important area that has emerged is the need to make data both human and machine readable. This flexibility of data will allow ease of use for academic researchers.

“Wiley’s forward thinking in researching this space intensively before putting a strong focus on data demonstrates the changing nature of academia and Wiley’s commitment to provide world class services to their authors,” said Mark Hahnel, CEO of Figshare. “As the scholarly credit system evolves, we want to ensure that all academics can get the credit they deserve for all of  their work. This partnership means that authors publishing with Wiley will have that benefit.”

“We’re constantly looking to provide the most innovative and rewarding publishing experience for our authors,” affirms Liz Ferguson, VP Editorial Development, Wiley. “Funder mandates are adding lots of extra requirements that our authors must comply with. Our author services are unmatched and working with Figshare further enhances those services for academic researchers publishing in Wiley journals.”

Picture: “Sharing” by ryancr on flickr.com. License: CC-BY-NC 2.0

Comments are closed.