Everyone wants better ways to make research data available and to give more credit to the researchers who create and share data. But for a data set to be widely reusable, scientists need to know how the data were produced and what quality-control experiments were performed. They need access to detailed descriptions of the data outputs, file formats, sample identifiers and replication structure. This is hard work that is often poorly rewarded. As a result, potentially valuable data sets go unpublished, or are not fully released to the public or not described in sufficient detail to permit reuse. To address this need, Nature Publishing Group will next spring launch Scientific Datay an open-access, online-only journal for detailed descriptions of data sets . This week, Scientific Data announced its first call for submissions . The doors are now open for scientists to submit 'Data Descriptor' manuscripts - a new article type that is designed to describe scientifically valuable data sets in a way that will promote data sharing and reuse.
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