Biodiv Sci ›› 2016, Vol. 24 ›› Issue (12): 1317-1324.  DOI: 10.17520/biods.2016325

• Data Paper • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Analysis of publication trends of biodiversity data papers

Junjie Li, Xiaolei Huang*()   

  1. State Key Laboratory of Ecological Pest Control for Fujian and Taiwan Crops, College of Plant Protection, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002
  • Received:2016-11-16 Accepted:2016-12-06 Online:2016-12-20 Published:2017-01-10
  • Contact: Huang Xiaolei

Abstract:

In recent years, there have been more and more appeals for sharing of biodiversity data. ‘Biodiversity data paper’ has been proposed as a reward mechanism for sharing data by individual scientists. Some data journals dedicated to publishing data papers have been founded. In this paper, we analyze the number of articles, coverage of biological groups, article views, and citations of two representative data journals (Biodiversity Data Journal and Scientific Data). Results show that the number of articles in both data journals has been steadily increasing. Biodiversity data papers cover a wide range of biological groups in Animalia, Plantae and Fungi. The article views and citations also show encouraging performance. These results indicate that data papers are being accepted by more and more researchers. Analysis of author regions of biodiversity data papers indicates a disequilibrium in the data sharing culture among different geographical regions. We suggest Chinese researchers and journals in related fields pay more attention to biodiversity data papers and trends of data sharing policies, as well as improving data sharing practices.

Key words: data sharing, data journal, open science, ecology, bibliometrics