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A recent study by Timothy Vines et al investigated the availability of scientific research data from 516 papers between 2 and 22 years of age¹.  They report that the older a paper is, the less likely it is that the data are accessible, with odds of accessible data falling by 17% per year after publication.

This is due in part to the difficulty in finding current contact details for authors of older papers. However, the decrease in availability of data from older papers was much steeper than would be expected if due solely to the deprecation of working contact details.

The loss of media holding the data was also a factor adding to the lack of availability of data from older papers. However, one of the main obstacles was actually obsolete storage devices, i.e. the physical storage devices were still available, but the hardware required to access the data was not.

As data in digital form is the main output of modern life sciences research, this potential loss of data is concerning.  Ongoing access to published research data is vital for validation, testing of new hypotheses and analysis methods, and reducing error and fraud.

To help life scientists ensure that the data they have painstakingly collected can live on beyond the scope of the initial project, F1000Research publishes data papers as Data Notes.  Data Notes enable researchers to share their dataset quickly and easily, providing a permanent and stable home for the data, whilst including relevant methods and context to ensure their data is truly useful into the future.

F1000Research ensures that the each dataset is formatted to ensure longevity. For example, we encourage authors to submit spreadsheets in CSV format, rather than using proprietary Excel formats.  This ensures that spreadsheets will remain accessible regardless of which version of MS Office is being used to access the data.  CSV files of course also remain fully accessible to non-MS Office users as well.

We are currently waiving APCs for an author’s first Data Note (including up to 1GB of data) until the end of July, so submit that dataset as an F1000Research Data Note, and ensure your data lives on!

 

1. Vines TH, Albert AY, Andrew RL, Débarre F, Bock DG, Franklin MT, Gilbert KJ, Moore JS, Renaut S, Rennison DJ. The availability of research data declines rapidly with article age.
   Curr Biol.  24:94-7  2014   doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2013.11.014