Linking Scholarly Literature to Research Data and Software - Lessons Learned in Astronomy

摘要

Publishing articles in scholarly journals is essential to furthering science. However, it is only one stage in the research cycle: one of the later stages, actually. After formulating a research goal, typically one or more proposals are written. When accepted, data is gathered, processed and compared to existing data and literature. Software plays an essential role in the data processing and comparison process. Often, before articles are published, papers and posters are presented at conferences. In short, there is a plethora of "products" associated with the entire research lifecycle. An essential ingredient in this cycle is the ability to find literature and associated products that were used to create it. Reproducibility of and the ability to add to existing results should be the norm, not the exception, for robust scientific research. Discoverability of data products and software needs an infrastructure and a culture. Astronomy has a long tradition of sharing data, but there is still a lot of work to do. Having this infrastructure will not only support discoverability, it will also enable measurement of impact and proper attribution. Both elements will help in getting funding for future research, which completes the cycle.