1. Publish or perish? Linking Scratchpads and the new Biodiversity Data Journal for streamlining publication of botanical data D.N Koureas 1, L. Penev 2 & V.S Smith 1 1 Natural History Museum, London 2 Bulgarian Academy of Sciences & Pensoft Publishers, Sofia

2. Publications based on countless specimens, images, maps, keys and datasets Current taxonomic data production Figure from Costello M.J et al, 2013. doi: 10.1126/science.1230318

3. On the other hand: Estimates of 7.5 million species still undescribed 1 1 How Many Species Are There on Earth and in the Ocean? Mora C et al. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001127

4. Expected volume of taxonomic and biodiversity data Need of extracting, aggregating and linking data on a global level

5. The four nodes of data cycle 1. We collect and generate data 2. We curate, link and structure data 3. We analyse data 4. We publish data

6. Data curation Data curation Data publishing Data publishing The four nodes of data cycle Data collection & generation Data collection & generation What are the bottlenecks in the workflow ? Data analysis Data analysis Lack of a wider conceptual frame Lack of resources (incl. time) Time consuming work Shifting to a new project Lack of a wider conceptual frame Lack of resources (incl. time) Time consuming work Shifting to a new project

7. Investigator-focused small data dark data 20% 80% Published and discoverable data Dark data more important mainly due to their volume 1 1 Heidorn PB. Library Trends 57:280-299 Typically generated by small communities or individual researchers for “local” research projects

8. small data count! Local floristic studies Singe nomenclatural acts Small taxonomic treatments Ecological and morphological datasets Occurrence records The building blocks of the world of plant biodiversity…

9. Publishing & Dissemination impediment Deprives the community of invaluable data Mobilisation impediment Prevents researchers from taking credit for their work

10. Cyndy Parr et al. TREE. doi:10.1016/j.tree.2011.11.001 This requires data, information & knowledge to be… Digital Not printed paper Openly accessible Not behind barriers (e.g. paywalls) Linked-up Not in silos “ Link together evolutionary data … by developing analytical tools and proper documentation and then use this framework to conduct comparative analyses, studies of evolutionary process and biodiversity analyses” To achieve this…

11. Scratchpads Virtual Research Environments Making biodiversity research digital, open & linked

12. What are Scratchpads? Online collaboration between peers Virtual research & publication platform Completely open access & open source A Scratchpad is a website that holds data for you and your community

13. Taxon descriptions Ecological and morphological data Specimen/observation records Image repository Bibliography management Enter - Link - Curate - Analyse - Annotate - Disseminate 7000 users in 580 communities around the world biodiversity data

14. The Scratchpads concept Your data External data & services Machine readable

15. Researchers & Research communities Human readable

16. The BIG question How do you incentivise researchers to use tools that structure and open their data? Enable them to take credit for ALL their work ? !

17. Structured data Publish, cite, disseminate & archive data Select, describe & annotate data Publication module No formatting - No restructuring - No author guidelines

18. Biodiversity Data Journal Open Access peer-review data journal Structured, reusable, standardized data Linked to Scratchpads via Publication Module http://biodiversitydatajournal.com/

19. What BDJ publish? Single taxon treatments and nomenclatural acts Local or regional checklists Sampling reports and occasional inventories Habitat-based checklists and inventories Ecological and biological observations Single identification keys Biodiversity-related databases, including genomic, ecological and environmental data (data papers) Biodiversity-related software tools & software documentation

20. Taxon descriptions Assembling a manuscript

21. Specimen data Assembling a manuscript

22. References Easily cite from your Scratchpad bibliography to compile a list of references Assembling a manuscript

23. Figures Assembling a manuscript

24. Tables Assembling a manuscript

25. Previewing your manuscript

26. XML Figures and Tables Keys References Text The publication module Author names and affiliations Taxon descriptions Specimen data Supplementary files Structured Data from your Scratchpad

27. Post submission workflow WRITING REVIEWING PUBLICATIONPlazi

28. Publish or perish? Biodiversity informatics tools and e-infrastructures can be used to take credit for our work and gain greater exposure for our data

29. Ευχαριστώ