Where to Share Your Data?

There are many competing standards out there for how to publish datasets with due credit to the author and publisher. Rich, structured metadata and interoperable standards for data identification are rapidly developing, but it’s not clear which standard is going to win the day or which search engines will successfully organize all that data.

Here is my short wish list for data standards:

• datasets should be openly available for peer-reviewed scientific publications
• datasets should be openly available for publicly funded scientific research
• dataset publishing standards should include units of measure for quantitative datasets
• dataset publishing standards should contain descriptions of categorical variables contained
• dataset publishing standards should contain full bibliographic information

Once structured information about datasets is available in an open format, aggregators will step into the breach and serve that information to researchers, along with well maintained links to the data publishers’ sites. The main barrier to aggregating and indexing information about datasets is common standards, not a dearth of universities and companies willing to do the job.

Back Up Your Data, Part 42

A new reason to backup your data: clouds prioritize the server’s version of your data over the local version. If the server file is corrupted, the sync feature could inadvertently wipe the local database. You’ll want to backup your Zotero libraries at regular intervals on at least on medium: local hard drive, a file server, CD-ROM, whatever.

Zotero‘s new release is out. After months in alpha, the sync feature permits libraries to appear on all your computers: home, work, laptop, whatever. It’s still one step shy of a web login, such as Refworks, but for those that prefer to work on desktop computers, this is a completely viable solution. Read the review at ReadWriteWeb.