Thompson Reuters announces Start of „Data Citation Index“

Posted: July 3rd, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Data Sharing | Tags: , , | Comments Off on Thompson Reuters announces Start of „Data Citation Index“

Thomson Reuters, known for the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) or the Web of Knowledge, has announced to start a “data citation index (DCI).”

This new index will incorporate content from data sets and data studies deposited in over 80 established, curated repositories, from around the World, multidisciplinary coverage across social sciences, physical sciences, life sciences and arts and humanities.  The aim of the DCI is to facilitate the discovery, use and attribution and data studies, and link those data to peer reviewed literature.

Thomson Reuters has partnered with data repositories such as the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) to capture bibliographic records and cited references for digital research, facilitating visibility, author attribution, and ultimately the measurement of impact of this growing body of scholarship. An archetype for these collaboration is the cooperation between Elsevier and PANGAEA – a data repository for the earth sciences.

According to Thomson Reuters the biggest part of the repositories is affilitated to the life sciences (54%), followed by the social (21%) and physical sciences (17%).

Mary Vardigan, assistant director of the ICPSR said:

 “By linking publications in the Web of Science to the datasets on which they are based and enhancing the discoverability of data through the Data Citation Index, Thomson Reuters is highlighting the importance of research data in the scientific process.”

Whether this cooperation will raise data publications is an open question to me, but I think in general it is a good way to incentivise researchers. Especially in economics where rankings and impact factors are highly important for many researchers, the DCI could support the availability of data and other materials in a discipline where data sharing and the replication of economic results are not common.

Thanks to Heinz Pampel and Heather Piwowar (‏@researchremix) for spreading the news!

 

Graphic by Gerd Altmann /pixelio.de

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