Scott Edmunds

*As part of the FAIRsharing Community Network (see [previous
blog](http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/presenting-the-fairsharing-community-network/))
and [joint Force11 and Research Data Alliance (RDA) FAIRsharing Working
Group](https://www.force11.org/group/biosharingwg) we have been involved
in efforts to develop a shared, cross-publisher list of recommended data
deposition repositories. The first fruits of these are a
[preprint](https://osf.io/m2bce/) from the working group and
[DataCite](https://datacite.org/) (of which we are also members)
summarising what we feel should be the key criteria for selection. Being
a (FAIR) sharing and caring community we are now seeking wider feedback
on these, and the many publishers involved have published a guest post
here explaining this work on data repository selection and providing a
forum for wider community input.*

**FAIRsharing Needs You**  
![FAIRsharing feedback on Data Repository
Selection](http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Screenshot-2019-11-29-at-12.09.15-PM-300x300.png){.alignright
.wp-image-3123 .size-medium fetchpriority="high" decoding="async"
width="300" height="300"
srcset="http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Screenshot-2019-11-29-at-12.09.15-PM-300x300.png 300w, http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Screenshot-2019-11-29-at-12.09.15-PM-150x150.png 150w, http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Screenshot-2019-11-29-at-12.09.15-PM-768x768.png 768w, http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Screenshot-2019-11-29-at-12.09.15-PM-1024x1024.png 1024w, http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Screenshot-2019-11-29-at-12.09.15-PM.png 1618w"
sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px"}Publishers and journals are
developing data policies to ensure that datasets, as well as other
digital products associated with articles, are deposited and made
accessible via appropriate repositories, also in line with the [FAIR
Principles](https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2016.18).  With thousands of
options available, however, the lists of deposition repositories
recommended by publishers are
[often](https://datascience.codata.org/article/10.5334/dsj-2017-042/)
[different](https://fairsharing.org/recommendations/)  and consequently
the guidance provided to authors may vary from journal to journal (see
the [*GigaScience* Editorial Policies & Reporting Standards
page](https://academic.oup.com/gigascience/pages/editorial_policies_and_reporting_standards)
and [FAIRsharing recommendation
page](https://fairsharing.org/recommendation/GigaScience) collecting
these together for examples). This is due to a lack of common criteria
used to select the data repositories, but also to the fact that there is
still no consensus of what constitutes a good data repository.

To tackle this, [FAIRsharing](https://fairsharing.org/) and
[DataCite](https://datacite.org/) have joined forces with a group of
publisher representatives (see the list of participants listed below)
who are actively implementing data policies and recommending data
repositories to researchers. The result of our work is a set of proposed
criteria that journals and publishers believe are important for the
identification and selection of data repositories, which can be
recommended to researchers when they are preparing to publish the data
underlying their findings.

Our work intends to

- reduce complexity for researchers when preparing their submissions to
  journals,
- increase efficiency for data repositories that currently have to work
  with all individual publishers, and
- simplify the process of recommending data repositories for publishers.

Our work will make the implementation of research data policies more
efficient and consistent, which may help to improve approaches to data
sharing by promoting the use of reliable data repositories.

Although we recognize that researchers and other stakeholders play a
role in the research data life cycle, in this first instance the target
audience for our work are other journals and publishers, repository
developers and maintainers, certification and other evaluation
initiatives, and other policy makers.

This ***proposed criteria*** are intended to:

- *guide* journals and publishers in providing authors with consistent
  recommendations and guidance on data deposition, and improve authors'
  data sharing practices;
- *reduce potential for confusion of researchers and support staff, and
  reduce duplication of effort by different publishers and data
  repositories*
- *inform* data repository developers and managers of the features
  believed to be important by journals and publishers;
- *apprise* certification and other evaluation initiatives, serving as a
  reference and perspective from journals and publishers;
- *drive* the curation of the description of the data repository in
  [FAIRsharing](https://fairsharing.org/), which will enable display,
  filter and search based on these criteria.

We invite you to [**read the pre-print article**](https://osf.io/m2bce/)
that describes the work, its motivation, relations to other initiatives,
and **provide us with feedback** via [this
form](https://tinyurl.com/RepoCriteriaFeedback).

**FAIRsharing Registry: connecting data policies, standards & databases
Working Group:**  
Susanna-Assunta Sansone, Peter McQuilton, Philippe Rocca-Serra
(FAIRsharing) Helena Cousijn2 (DataCite), Matthew Cannon, Nicholas
Everitt (Taylor & Francis), Wei Mun Chan (eLife), Ilaria Carnevale,
Marina Soares E Silva (Elsevier), Imogen Cranston, Hollydawn Murray,
Jonathan Threlfall (F1000), Scott Edmunds (*GigaScience*), Emma Ganley,
Iain Hrynaszkiewicz (PLOS), Chris Graf, Kathryn Sharples (Wiley), Varsha
K. Khodiyar (Springer Nature), Thomas Lemberger (EMBO Press), Catriona
J. MacCallum (Hindawi), Kiera McNeice (Cambridge University Press)

::: {.col-md-8}
::: {.blog-post}
**Further Reading  
**Sansone SA et al., Data Repository Selection: Criteria That Matter,
v2. *OSF Preprints* (2019) <https://osf.io/m2bce/>

Sansone SA et al., FAIRsharing, a cohesive community approach to the
growth in standards, repositories and policies. *Nature Biotechnology*
**37**, p358--367 (2019)
doi:[10.1038/s41587-019-0080-8](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-019-0080-8)
:::
:::

The post [FAIRsharing Guestpost: What Criteria Matters with Data
Repository
Selection?](http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog/fairsharing-data-repository-selection/){rel="nofollow"}
appeared first on
[GigaBlog](http://gigasciencejournal.com/blog){rel="nofollow"}.


<em>
 As part of the FAIRsharing Community Network (see previous blog) and joint Force11 and Research Data Alliance (RDA) FAIRsharing Working Group we have been involved in efforts to develop a shared, cross-publisher list of recommended data deposition repositories. The first fruits of these are a preprint from the working group and DataCite (of which we are also members) summarising what we feel should be the key criteria for selection.
</em>

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

FAIRsharing Guestpost: What Criteria Matters with Data Repository Selection?