Klaus Tochtermann
Professor
ZBW Leibniz Information Centre for Economics
Peter Schirmbacher
Professor, School of Library and Information Science
Humboldt University of Berlin
Facilitating Replication of Research Results in Economics (Tochtermann)
Empirical studies are increasingly important in many disciplines, including in economics, where a rising number of journals publish empirical papers in which the authors have used data sets for their research. However, so far there have been few means to replicate these research results within the framework of the corresponding article and to verify the findings claimed in an empirical paper. The DFG (German Research Foundation) funded project EDaWaX is intended to meet some of these challenges. One of project’s main objectives is to develop a publication related data archive for economics journals.
re3data.org: Establishing a Registry for Research Data Repositories (Schirmbacher)
Research data are valuable and ubiquitous. The permanent access to research data is a challenge for all stakeholders in the scientific community. The long-term preservation and the principle of open access to research data offer broad opportunities for the scientific community.
More and more universities and research centers are starting to build research data repositories allowing permanent access to data sets in a trustworthy environment. Due to disciplinary requirements, the landscape of data repositories is rather heterogeneous, thus it is difficult for researchers, funding bodies, publishers and scholarly institutions to select appropriate repositories for archiving or retrieving research data.
The goal of re3data.org is to create a global registry of research data repositories that will cover research data repositories from different academic disciplines. The registry will be a source of information on the permanent storage and access of data sets to researchers, funding bodies, publishers and scholarly institutions. In the course of this mission, re3data.org aims to promote a culture of sharing, increased access, and better visibility of research data.
The alpha version of the registry has been online since December 2012. The launch of version 1.0 is planned for spring 2013. Metadata which has been entered from existing sources will be reviewed and complemented if necessary.
Partners in the project are:
• School of Library and Information Science at Humboldt University Berlin
• German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ)
• Library of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
The partners are actively involved in the German Initiative for Network Information (DINI), which is committed to improving information and communication services in higher education institutions by providing the necessary information infrastructures locally and nationally.