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As part of International Data Week, F1000Research joins data professionals and researchers from all disciplines in exploring how best to exploit the data revolution to improve our knowledge and benefit society through data-driven research and innovation.

“The new kingmakers”

Researchers, funders, universities, and publishers are often recognised as the key players in the Open Data movement.  But as data emerges as the new capital of scientific research, there is a growing awareness of the importance of developers in data-rich research environments.  This is not to say that developers can’t also be researchers, and researchers can’t also be developers.  Both can hold many roles, and roles are not always distinct.

Open Data software, much like Open Data itself, has the potential to foster collaboration, reduce barriers, promote good practice, increase efficiency and improve reproducibility.

One such example is ‘Data2Paper’, which was formerly known as ‘Giving researcher’s credit for their data’.  Led by Neil Jefferies, Head of Innovation at the Bodleian Library, and funded by  Jisc’s Research Data Spring, the aim of the application is to allow researchers to submit a ‘data paper’ for publication directly from a data repository, using a single click.  Set to launch this winter, the newly designed Data2Paper prototype will operate between live data repositories and publisher platforms, yielding real papers.

Not just for startups

Innovation in Open Data is also fuelled by tech-industry traditions among developers: namely, hackathons and community powered projects.  In response, F1000Research has developed the Hackathon and Galaxy channels, respectively.  The Hackathon channel serves as a venue for bioinformaticians and software developers to publish software which has been rapidly prototyped to address gaps between public datasets and the tools required to analyse them. Similarly, the Galaxy channel brings together presentations and posters about the framework which was initially designed as an open web platform for data intensive research.

Revolution requires evolution

The span of a developer’s responsibility doesn’t end at innovation.  Software developed to make data sharing feasible is only useful if the parties involved are able to do so with ease. This means that software must also be maintained. Given the quick pace at which science changes, one may expect rapid, dynamic, and discipline-specific changes in all the above initiatives, and beyond, as software for Open Data evolves.