The Research Data Alliance (RDA) and the International Council for Science World Data System (ICSU-WDS) announce a new global framework for linking publications and datasets. The Scholix framework -- Scholarly Link Exchange -- represents a set of aspirational principles and practical guidelines to support a global information ecosystem around links between scholarly literature and research data.
The framework aims for a seamless exchange of information about literature and related data, thereby facilitating re-use, reproducibility, and transparent evaluation of science. The Scholix framework consists of a conceptual and information model, with standards, guidelines and options for encoding and exchange protocols. The three core objectives of the framework are:
- Increase visibility and discoverability of data and articles
- Place data in context to enable re-use
- Support credit attribution mechanisms
The Scholix framework is the output of a working group led by RDA and ICSU-WDS and a number of key global players in research information including, among others, Crossref, DataCite, OpenAIRE, PANGAEA, International STM Association, Australian National Data Service, and Elsevier.
'Data has become all-pervasive in scholarly publishing', said Hylke Koers of Elsevier, one of the conveners and Co-chair of the group, 'but practice varies widely and we needed an open and global commons for the information about data-literature links.'
'We have agreed on this framework so that information about data-literature links can be exchanged in a standard way and everyone can build up a comprehensive joined-up view', explained Adrian Burton of the Australian National Data Service, Co-chair of the working group. 'This will make it more rewarding for researchers to share their data and more straightforward to track the impact of their data in the scholarly literature.'
Organizations such as Crossref, DataCite, and OpenAIRE, have already started to develop services that follow the Scholix framework:
- OpenAIRE and PANGAEA Data-Literature Interlinking (DLI) Service
- DataCite Event Data
- Crossref Event Data and Linked Clinical Trials
Martin Fenner of DataCite comments, 'We are looking to involve other communities to extend this approach to other hubs and form an open global mesh of information.' Sayeed Choudhury, Director of the Sloan-funded RMap project, adds: 'Scholix addresses an important foundation for data and publication citation. We hope to evaluate the RMap APIs and protocols for aggregation through the Scholix effort.'
'As part of the work carried out so far, we collected 1.4 million data-literature links from publishers and data centres in an open system called the DLI,' says Paolo Manghi of OpenAIRE. 'As standardisation grows through the use of the Scholix framework, the whole system will become more scalable and this number can grow exponentially'.
The Scholix framework is the output of the joint ICSU-WDS/RDA working group on Data Publishing Services. A follow up group is being launched to implement and extend the framework. Participation is open and welcome: http://www.scholix.org/participate
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