Ten Simple Rules for Digital Data Storage

摘要

Data is the central currency of science, but the nature of scientific data has changed dramatically with the rapid pace of technology. This change has led to the development of a wide variety of data formats, dataset sizes, data complexity, data use cases, and data sharing practices.Improvements in high-throughput DNA sequencing, sustained institutional support for largesensor networks [1,2], and sky surveys with large-format digital cameras [3] have created massive quantities of data. At the same time, the combination of increasingly diverse researchteams [4] and data aggregation in portals (e.g., for biodiversity data, GBIF.org or iDigBio)necessitates increased coordination among data collectors and institutions [5,6]. As a consequence, “data” can now mean anything from petabytes of information stored in professionallymaintained databases, to spreadsheets on a single computer, to handwritten tables in lab notebooks on shelves. All remain important, but data curation practices must continue to keeppace with the changes brought about by new forms of data and new data collection and storagepractices.