An important set of challenges for eScience initiatives and digital libraries concern the need to provide scientists with the ability to access data from multiple sources. This paper argues that an analysis of scientists’ reuse of data prior to the advent of eScience can illuminate the requirements and design of digital libraries and cyberinfrastructure.

In this paper, I analyze the experiences of ecologists who used data they did not collect themselves. Specifically, I examine the processes by which ecologists understand and assess the quality of the data they reuse, and I investigate the role that standard methods of data collection play in these processes.

Susanna-Assunta Sansone is a Team Leader at the University of Oxford e-Research Centre, UK. There her work is focused on standards and software development to facilitate the data annotation, sharing and meta-analysis of biological, biomedical and environmental studies. She is the co-founder of MIBBI and the BioSharing initiatives.

Professor Stuart Shieber directs the Office for Scholarly Communication at Harvard University. He is also a professor of computer science in Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. As a strong open-access advocate, he has led a multi-year effort to shape Harvard’s policies in this arena.

DRYAD is an international repository of data underlying peer-reviewed articles in the basic and applied biosciences. DRYAD is governed by a consortium of journals that collaboratively promote data archiving and ensure the sustainability of the repository.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a research agenda for scientific data sharing and reuse that considers these three areas: broader participation in data sharing and reuse, increases in the number and types of intermediaries, and more digital data products.
by Ixchel M. Faniel and Ann Zimmerman

An ontology is a logic-based organizational structure for knowledge. Ontologies speed genetic discovery by allowing researchers to quickly find and compare data from multiple sources.
by Nicole Washington and Suzanna Lewis

Open access to publicly funded data provides greater returns from the public investment in research, generates wealth through downstream commercialization of outputs, and provides decision-makers with facts needed to address problems. This article summarizes key findings of an international group that studied these issues on behalf of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.