AGIA

Australian Geoscience Information Association Inc.


Australian Geoscience Information Association Inc.
Our aim is to initiate, aid, promote and improve the exchange of information in the earth sciences and related areas.
Please browse our website for information and upcoming events of interest.


Newsletters


News
  • Scholarly Journals Introduce New Data Archiving Policy

    An important editorial about data archiving has just appeared online in the February issue of The American Naturalist <http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/650340>.

    To promote the preservation and fuller use of data, The American Naturalist, Evolution, the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, Molecular Ecology, Heredity, and other key journals in evolution and ecology will soon introduce a new data archiving policy to ensure that data supporting published articles is preserved and made publicly available. The policy has been enacted by the Executive Councils of the societies owning or sponsoring the journals.

    For example, the policy of The American Naturalist will state:

      This journal requires, as a condition for publication, that data
      supporting the results in the paper should be archived in an
      appropriate public archive, such as GenBank, TreeBASE, Dryad, or the
      Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity. Data are important products of
      the scientific enterprise, and they should be preserved and usable
      for decades in the future. Authors may elect to have the data
      publicly available at time of publication, or, if the technology of
      the archive allows, may opt to embargo access to the data for a
      period up to a year after publication. Exceptions may be granted at
      the discretion of the editor, especially for sensitive information
      such as human subject data or the location of endangered species.

    This policy will be introduced approximately a year from now, after a period when authors are encouraged to voluntarily place their data in a public archive. Data that have an established standard repository, such as DNA sequences, should continue to be archived in the appropriate repository, such as GenBank. Data can also be archived in a more flexible, interdisciplinary digital data archive such as the National Science Foundation–sponsored Dryad <http://datadryad.org> repository, at http://datadryad.org.

    Dryad is developed by the US National Evolutionary Synthesis Center <http://www.nescent.org/> and the University of North Carolina Metadata Research Center, <http://ils.unc.edu/mrc/> in collaboration with a consortium of partner journals.

    Authors of the editorial, Michael C. Whitlock, Mark A. McPeek, Mark D. Rausher, Loren Rieseberg, and Allen J. Moore present the case for the importance of data archiving in science. This is the first of several coordinated editorials soon to appear in major journals.

    Citation: Am Nat 2010. Vol. 175, pp. 145–146. DOI: 10.1086/650340

    For more information, contact: Peggy Schaeffer, Communications Coordinator, Dryad pschaeffer@nescent.org

Upcoming conferences and symposia

  • GSWA Seminar and Poster Display
    25 February 2010, 8am – 5pm, Esplanade Hotel Fremantle
    www.dmp.wa.gov.au/gswa

  • AESC (Australian Earth Sciences Convention)
    4-6 July 2010, Canberra
    www.aesc2010.gsa.org.au

  • Evolving Early Earth, 5th International Archean Symposium
    5-9 September 2010, Burswood Entertainment Complex, Perth, Western Australia
    www.5ias.org
    Abstract deadline: 12 February 2010

Of Interest

AGC logo

  AGIA is a member of the Australian Geoscience Council  
©     AGIA 2009 Page updated February 8, 2010