Public Data Archiving in Ecology and Evolution: How Well Are We Doing?

Dominique G Roche, Loeske E B Kruuk, Robert Lanfear and Sandra A Binning

PLOS Biology, 2015, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-12

Abstract: Policies that mandate public data archiving (PDA) successfully increase accessibility to data underlying scientific publications. However, is the data quality sufficient to allow reuse and reanalysis? We surveyed 100 datasets associated with nonmolecular studies in journals that commonly publish ecological and evolutionary research and have a strong PDA policy. Out of these datasets, 56% were incomplete, and 64% were archived in a way that partially or entirely prevented reuse. We suggest that cultural shifts facilitating clearer benefits to authors are necessary to achieve high-quality PDA and highlight key guidelines to help authors increase their data’s reuse potential and compliance with journal data policies.Careful scrutiny of one hundred studies in journals that mandate data archival reveals that over half do not comply with their journal’s data policy.

Date: 2015
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pbio00:1002295

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002295

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