Towards a Data Sharing Policy.
ERA-CAPS has the ambition to enhance plant science’s positive impact on society, among other things, by contributing to intensified use and exchange of scientific data. Before implementing such a strategy, it is essential to learn what the general feeling is about this subject among plant scientists. To this end, a workshop with 16 participants involved in molecular plant sciences was organised on August 1st 2012, making good use of the molecular plant biology congress taking place in Freiburg.
ERA-CAPS should not set up any new data infrastructure, but it may contribute to the sustainability of, and sustainable funding for, internationally well-regarded, and well-kept data management system infrastructures.
Quality control of data, and good annotation to enhance ‘findability’ (‘good stewardship’), are regarded at least as important as the accessibility of data (‘good ownership’). For scientists it is important that they get (scientific) credit for their data where credit is due.
Science funders could make data management obligatory or limit themselves to presenting suitable data management tools like a hub or gateway, providing quality control, access to data management infrastructure and training/co-ordination, to name but a few functions.
ERA-CAPS plans to have a Data Sharing Policy, based on the input from this workshop and discussions among ERA-CAPS participants/observers, in place for the second joint call.
Contact: Theo Saat