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NISO Voting Members Approve New Working Group

NISO Voting Members Approve New Working Group

November 2021

Integrating Publisher and Repository Workflows to Improve Research Data-Article Links

The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) announced in October that its Voting Members have approved work on a new project, Integrating Publisher and Repository Workflows to Improve Research Data-Article Links. 

With widespread support for open data from many government entities, publishers, funders, and other stakeholders, research data is increasingly being deposited, published, and cited. However, there are still a number of barriers — technical as well as cultural. This new project aims to address some of the technical issues by making linking between data and other research objects with their associated literature both easier and more consistent. The new NISO Working Group on Integrating Publisher and Repository Workflows to Improve Research Data-Article Links will develop a Recommended Practice for how publisher and repository systems should interoperate, so that link creation happens automatically.

Building on industry efforts such as the RDA/WDS Scholarly Link Exchange (Scholix),  JATS4R Recommendations on Data Citations and Data Availability Statements, this project aims to define the information required at each end of the bidirectional link between datasets and other research works, including what notifications are needed. The goal is to create a Recommended Practice that platform providers of all sizes can aspire to meet.

The Working Group’s remit will include defining the required metadata, building a terminology of events and of citation/link types for data/article relationships, and agreeing what information needs to be exchanged and in which direction.  

“We are delighted that our Voting Members have approved this new project,” said Nettie Lagace, NISO’s Associate Executive Director. “It was one of the top ideas to emerge from this year’s NISO Plus conference, and it’s exciting that our community’s enthusiasm for improving publisher and repository workflows is now becoming a reality.”

For more information about the Working Group on Integrating Publisher and Repository Workflows to Improve Research Data-Article Links, or to volunteer to participate in it, please contact nisohq@niso.org.