Zzzoot

Research data and metadata - usually derived from an experiment or series of experiments - is in the hot focus of the researcher during the experiment and the subsequent interpretation, paper writing and publishing. But once the researcher has moved on to their next effort, this data is very much at risk. Often (read ' the-rule-rather-than-the-exception '), the data is not properly managed and archived, and resides as a single copy on the researcher's desktop or maybe research server. In addition, the metadata is minimal or non-existent, and if it does exist is only interpretable by the researcher and their colleagues or students. Over time, the chance that this data will be lost or useful knowledge about it forgotten by the researcher increases, and the information content of the data and metadata rapidly decreases. Some events can seriously accelerate this decrease: data loss (media failure, computer replacement, other serious accidents or failures, etc); change of care...

In the recent editorial ( Am Nat 2010. Vol. 175, pp. 145–146 ) of The American Naturalist , it was announced that the journals " The American Naturalist , Evolution , the Journal of Evolutionary Biology , Molecular Ecology , Heredity , and other key journals in evolution and ecology..." would be introducing data archiving policies supporting access, re-use and long term preservation. These policies are to be put in place in one year, and the example policy for the The American Naturalist is given: This journal requires, as a condition for publication, that data supporting the results in the paper should be archived in an appropriate public archive, such as GenBank, TreeBASE, Dryad , or the Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity. Data are important products of the scientific enterprise, and they should be preserved and usable for decades in the future. Authors may elect to have the data publicly available at time of publication, or, if the technology of the archive allow...