9 December 2018 – SourceData describes the contents of figures from scientific articles in a standardized, machine-readable format, allowing articles to be searched and interlinked using their data content. In collaboration with BioStudies from EMBL-EBI, a database that aggregates the data files linked to a specific publication or project, SourceData now offers an integrated workflow to make published data openly accessible and easy to find.
The pilot implementation of this new publication workflow is announced today at the ASCB|EMBO 2018 Meeting. The EMBO Journal, EMBO Reports, Molecular Systems Biology and EMBO Molecular Medicine, published by EMBO Press, will process all accepted manuscripts through SourceData and make their raw data files downloadable via links to the BioStudies repository from January 2019.
Making the announcement, SourceData project lead, Thomas Lemberger, explains “Scientists can support future research by making their published data findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. This is referred to as FAIR data (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAIR_data). SourceData provides one of the most complete implementations of the FAIR principles to date. By curating figures and their underlying data, SourceData provides authors with a service that makes their data searchable, interconnected, accessible and downloadable as an integral part of journal publication. This process adds value by enabling figures to talk to each other, establishing connections across papers based on the experimental data.”
The management and hosting of the SourceData files is enabled by an automated route for passing files and their descriptive metadata from SourceData to BioStudies. Jo McEntyre, Literature Services Team leader at EMBL-EBI describes the advantages this brings: “BioStudies collates all the data from a study into a unified record, linking to key community data resources, storing related data files, and linking to publications, making the data easier to cite and find. The pipeline from SourceData provides a route for authors to deposit their data, cite it in their papers and benefit from a searchable, catalogued data archive. We are delighted to collaborate with SourceData on this leading integration with publishing workflows and we hope to see more of this kind of arrangement with journals in the future.”
Describing the first live implementation of SourceData in their publishing workflow, Head of Scientific Publishing at EMBO, Bernd Pulverer, expresses how working with SourceData is core to the EMBO Press commitment to data integrity and transparency: “We enthusiastically promote FAIR, accurate and open data, with policies that encourage the sharing of reusable data files in high-quality peer-reviewed studies. This pilot project with SourceData makes us the first publisher to offer a fully integrated data curation and deposition pipeline – a practice that we would like to see become an Open Science publishing standard.”
Following this pilot, SourceData will aim to partner with other organisations to make this integrated data-discovery platform available more widely for publishers and other scientific institutions to benefit from its organized system of hosted, findable data.
For more information on SourceData
For more information on BioStudies
For more information on EMBO Press
About EMBO
EMBO is an organization of more than 1800 leading researchers that promotes excellence in the life sciences in Europe and beyond. The major goals of the organization are to support talented researchers at all stages of their careers, stimulate the exchange of scientific information, and help build a research environment where scientists can achieve their best work.
EMBO helps young scientists to advance their research, promote their international reputations and ensure their mobility. Courses, workshops, conferences and scientific journals disseminate the latest research and offer training in techniques to maintain high standards of excellence in research practice. EMBO helps to shape science and research policy by seeking input and feedback from our community and by following closely the trends in science in Europe.
About European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI)
The European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) is a global leader in the storage, analysis and dissemination of large biological datasets. We help scientists realise the potential of ‘big data’ by enhancing their ability to exploit complex information to make discoveries that benefit humankind.
We are at the forefront of computational biology research, with work spanning sequence analysis methods, multi-dimensional statistical analysis and data-driven biological discovery, from plant biology to mammalian development and disease.
We are part of EMBL and are located on the Wellcome Genome Campus, one of the world’s largest concentrations of scientific and technical expertise in genomics.
