Scientific Data and Nature host an event that explores how different stake holders can collaborate with researchers to publish better science through better data management.
Data, without a doubt, are the foundation of science. If you’re a researcher, your life is data: you spend your days generating it, analysing it, and writing papers about it. You share it with colleagues and collaborate on projects that will build on it and find new and exciting things. But policy makers, funders and universities are also involved in the conversation – each trying to solve the problem of managing the increasing influx of data whilst keeping the integrity of science high.
Last Friday, PhD students and postdoctoral researchers came to the Nature offices to learn about how research data affects a scientist’s ability to publish and get research funding. The event, Publishing Better Science through Better Data, consisted of a series of talks from editors, data curators, software developers and funding body representatives, all giving their perspective on how data affects scientific research and publishing.
{credit}Image credit: Nandita Quaderi (@DrNandiQ){/credit}
The editor’s perspective
Philip Campbell, Editor-in-Chief of Nature and its sister journals provided an editor’s perspective and shared how Nature journal was handling the reproducibility problem: “It mostly consists of things that are bad or sloppy science, not fraud.” To minimize the amount of “sloppy science” being published in Nature, editors have put a check-list in place for scientists that they submit along with their papers, making the research process more transparent. “It’s improving the reliability of the design of experiments, which is what we want to see happening.” Continue reading
