Archive by category | Access

Storing data forever

Storing data forever

From Nature Geoscience 3, 219 (May 2010) Unlike accountants, scientists need to store their data forever. This expanding task requires dedication, expertise and substantial funds. Data are at the heart of scientific research. Therefore, all data and metadata should be stored — forever, and accessibly. But it would be naïve to think that such a ‘gold standard’ of preservation could be achieved. In one spectacular example of the failure of science to save its treasures, some of NASA’s early satellite data were erased from the high-resolution master tapes in the 1980s. The lost data could now help extend truly global  … Read more

Nature Geoscience on the pros and cons of online publication

Nature Geoscience on the pros and cons of online publication

Online publishing has blurred the boundary between accepted and published articles, a topic discussed in an Editorial this month (April) in Nature Geoscience ( 3,219; 2010) . From the Editorial: With the advent of online publication over the past 10 years, it no longer needs to take months or years for an accepted paper to become available to journal subscribers, and the term ‘monthly journal’ is losing its meaning. Articles are published online weeks to months before publication in print, with benefits all round: authors can make their peer-reviewed results available to the scientific community quickly, readers can keep abreast  … Read more

Nature Physics calls for support of the arXiv preprint server

Nature Physics calls for support of the arXiv preprint server

Funding of the arXiv preprint server must now be shared by more of its users, says Nature Physics in its March Editorial (6, 147; 2010) From the Editorial: The arXiv preprint server has become central to the working lives of most physicists: ‘checking the arXiv’ is the starting point of many a daily routine. Founded by Paul Ginsparg, the arXiv has expanded to include not only physics — astrophysics, condensed matter, and high-energy physics being heavily represented — but also mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology and even quantitative finance. The arXiv now hosts nearly 600,000 preprints from 101,000 registered submitters  … Read more

Integrating with integrity, according to Nature Genetics

Integrating with integrity, according to Nature Genetics

Data worthy of integration with the results of other researchers need to be prepared to explicit export standards, linked to appropriate metadata and offered with field-specific caveats for use. The Editorial in the January edition of Nature Genetics ( 42, 1; 2010) explores the extent to which, to be useful at generating new analyses and hypotheses, data sharing needs to be about standardized formats as much as simply being made ‘available’. For example, the Editorial states, “Sample sizes, selection criteria, statistical significance, number of hypotheses tested, normalization and scaling procedures, read depth and sequence quality scores are all important considerations  … Read more

Nature Cell Biology on research integrity and accessibility

The cell biology literature contains manipulated data that distort findings, usually in an attempt to ‘beautify’ and, rarely, to commit fraud, states the September Editorial in Nature Cell Biology (11, 1045; 2009, free to read online) According to the Editorial, a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report, ‘Ensuring the Integrity, Accessibility, and Stewardship of Research Data in the Digital Age’, "arrives at no hard and fast rules; the panel found that different fields have quite different requirements. In the words of panel chairs Phillip Sharp and Daniel Kleppner, “the report provides a framework for dealing with the challenges to the  … Read more

Nature Materials on access to the literature

Joerg Heber, a senior editor at Nature Materials, announces that access to all Editorials in the journal is now free to registered users of nature.com. This follows a similar decision taken at Nature some years ago, and more recently, by Nature Cell Biology. The August Editorial of Nature Materials (8, 611; 2009) discusses publishing models more broadly: “As moves towards open-access schemes gain momentum, the choice between ‘author pays’ and subscription-based models may come down to fundamental business considerations rather than limits in access to original research.” In ‘open access’ publishing, authors pay for publication costs, and online access and dissemination of those papers is free for readers.  Read more

Chemical biologists could help accelerate drug discovery

This month’s (July) Nature Chemical Biology includes two articles describing how access to the highest quality chemical probes will ensure their prominent position in the biological and drug discovery toolboxes.  Read more

Incentives needed for genome annotation

Roy Welch and Laura Welch of Syracuse University, New York, examine why researchers seem reluctant to be more directly involved in the annotation of microbial genomes in the February issue of Nature Reviews Microbiology (7, 90; 2009). They write:  … Read more

Historical microbiology archive made free to all

In its November Editorial, Nature Reviews Microbiology (6, 794; 2008) reports that the archive of the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology (IJSEM) has been made available free online: a boon for scientists, historians and the public. The Society for General Microbiology publishes IJSEM on behalf of the International Committee on Systematics of Prokaryotes of the International Union of Microbiological Societies. The society has now provided funding for the entire back archive of the journal to be made freely available worldwide without a journal subscription. (The current content, or past two years, remains subject to access controls.)  … Read more