[Sigsti-l] OECD publishing standards for datasets & data tables (fwd)

[Joe Hourcle]

As data citation's been brought up a few times among SIG-STI members, I 
thought I'd pass along a white paper from earlier this year that I just 
stumbled upon:


 	Green, T (2009), "We Need Publishing Standards for Datasets and
 	Data Tables", OECD Publishing White Paper, OECD Publishing.
 	doi: 10.1787/603233448430
 	http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/603233448430

It's not specifically scientific data, but it adds to the general 
discussion, as they describe the attributes and relationships for:

 	Datasets (granules)
 	Collection of Datasets
 	Key tables
 	Key table collections
 	Key table editions

And, for those who don't want to jump in blindly, here's the introduction:

 	<http://www.oecd.org/document/25/0,3343,en_21571361_33915056_42600857_1_1_1_1,00.html>

 	On 20th April 2009, OECD has released a white paper, We Need
 	Publishing Standards for Datasets and Data Tables, which examines
 	the problems with current data discoverability and citations and
 	the remedy in creating industry standards for bibliographic
 	dataset metadata and linking.

 	Written by Toby Green, Head of Publishing at OECD and an expert in
 	data publishing, the paper details the problems with user ability
 	to locate and reference online data. Datasets are a significant
 	part of the scholarly record and being published much more
 	frequently but with widely inconsistent metadata, links and
 	citations.

 	The paper proposes bibliographic metadata standards that could be
 	implemented to provide users and librarians with data that is as
 	accessible and as easy to find and catalogue as written works like
 	journal articles and book chapters.  By following existing
 	scholarly metadata standards, datasets can easily utilise the
 	existing discovery channels that are used by e-journals and
 	e-books, including library systems, cross reference linking,
 	publishing platforms, and search engines.

 	The paper provides straightforward standards that publishers,
 	librarians and data providers can implement to improve the
 	accessibility and usage of important datasets, both the data that
 	underlies scholarly works and data in that is published in its own
 	right.

 	Permanent URL for the white paper which includes a summary of the
 	standards proposed and an annex with the detailed proposal:
 	http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/603233448430.

 	For further information please contact Toby Green at
 	toby.green at oecd.org.

-Joe