Public data archiving in ecology and evolution: how well are we doing?

Dominique G. Roche; Loeske E. B. Kruuk; Robert Lanfear; Sandra A. Binning

doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002295

Public data archiving in ecology and evolution: how well are we doing?

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

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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.

Original language	English
Article number	e1002295
Pages (from-to)	1-12
Number of pages	12
Journal	PLoS Biology
Volume	13
Issue number	11
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002295
Publication status	Published - 10 Nov 2015

Bibliographical note

Copyright the Author(s) 2015. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.

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10.1371/journal.pbio.1002295

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Public data archiving in ecology and evolution: how well are we doing?

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