Monthly Archives: May 2021

Dryad’s Enhanced Features for Data + Related Research Objects

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At Dryad we continue to focus on the two key pillars of data publishing: curation of data as well as seamlessly easy workflows. We are committed to designing solutions centered on meeting researchers’ needs for easy and responsible data publication. Understanding that research data is one component of open science, we have prioritized partnerships and integrations that allow for Dryad to continue focusing on curated research data while providing support for non-data objects submitted in tandem. In February, we launched the first of our Zenodo integrations allowing for software related to Dryad datasets to be published with proper license and citation. Soon after, we got moving on collaboration with one of our new partners, Open Knowledge Foundation and the Frictionless Data team, to explore automated data quality checks. Thinking through the evolving needs of researchers in publishing their data and other works, as well as our work ahead with Frictionless Data and Zenodo, we recognized the need to modernize and upgrade our submission interface and underlying technologies.

We are excited to share our enhanced upload features at Dryad

Dryad’s new interface, using a React framework, combines all types of uploads on one page, making it clear what types of files researchers would like to submit and which ones will be triaged and published at Zenodo. This allows for Dryad to now accept multiple types of related works for submitted datasets: software and now supplementary information. Because of our deep roots with publishers, we have long accepted supplementary files like figures and non-data that do not require or are not applicable for curation or a CC0 license. We are thrilled to be able to better support these submissions, in addition to code and software that are related to Dryad datasets.

Users are now welcome to upload data, or data plus any combination of software and/or supplementary information

Like with our previous release, these related files are queued up at Zenodo, available in our private for peer review access URL, and published in conjunction with the dataset

And the related identifiers are automatically added to the related works on the Dryad landing page as well as further linked up in our metadata that we send to DataCite

These enhancements allow for us to immediately support our submitting authors, but also allows for us to build on a more nimble framework for our future feature releases: we are busy developing our integration with Frictionless Data to auto-validate tabular data files submitted to Dryad for curation, and we are gearing up for our summer of journal integrations with eJournalPress and Editorial Manager.

As always, if you have any feedback or feature ideas that we should consider for supporting best practices in data and software publishing, please get in touch. 

Dryad Welcomes Interim Executive Director Patricia Cruse

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By Johan Nilsson, Chairperson, Dryad Board of Directors

As Chair of the Dryad Board of Directors, it is exciting to see how much Dryad has grown over the past 10 years to a truly international and impactful organization. Year on year, we continue to curate and publish more datasets than years prior, and we’ve expanded our Dryad community bringing on institutions, funders, and publishers globally. This growth signifies the importance of data publishing and Dryad remains committed to building strong partnerships with publishers, institutions, and researchers. 

We are very much looking forward to bringing on our next Executive Director to drive Dryad’s continued success and are delighted by the many strong candidates that have already come forward. In the meantime, Dryad’s Board of Directors is pleased to announce that Patricia (Trisha) Cruse has accepted an appointment to the position of Interim Executive Director. Trisha brings with her many years of experience in data sharing, libraries, and non-profit organizations, including serving as Executive Director of DataCite. Most recently Trisha has worked with the Dryad team on membership strategies and outreach. With her unique perspective and expertise, Trisha is ideally positioned to lead Dryad during this transitional period. 

In her role as Interim Executive Director, Trisha will continue to sustain and move Dryad forward and is committed to the vision of supporting researchers in data publishing and data reuse. We are confident that Trisha’s experiences will allow her to successfully lead Dryad during this phase, working closely with the Dryad Board of Directors and team as we choose our next Executive Director.

As we prepare for the future of Dryad, we would like to extend our thanks to Tracy Teal for her leadership this past year. We are looking forward to this next chapter at Dryad, and we will continue to keep the community apprised as we recruit for a permanent Executive Director. 

Please feel free to contact me at chair@datadryad.org or Trisha at director@datadryad.org if you have any questions.