Data Publishing and Curation Alliance: California Digital Library & Dryad Digital Repository Announce Strategic Partnership

Full Text of Announcement via U. of California Office of President:

University of California’s California Digital Library (CDL) and Dryad Digital Repository are formally partnering to address researcher needs and lead an open, community-supported initiative in research data curation and publishing. This partnership is aimed at driving adoption of curated, accessible data publishing in the research community and will leverage the capabilities of both institutions and publishers to better align data publishing within researcher workflows.

Todd Vision, a founder of Dryad, “This is an exciting development in the world of open scholarly infrastructure. Dryad and CDL have a shared commitment to inventing the future when it comes to the stewardship of research data.”
This alliance pairs the strengths and assets of each organization together to form this unique partnership: CDL’s knowledge of institutional needs and technical capabilities with Dryad’s strong relationships with publishers and well-established name within the research community. They will jointly work to develop the technical advancements needed to make data sharing, curation, discovery, and reuse a standard part of research practice across disciplines.
Dr. Theodora Bloom, Executive Editor of The BMJ and former member of the Dryad board notes: “The partnership between CDL and Dryad brings together two important innovators in the handling of research data. By connecting publishers, institutions, data repositories and researchers, CDL and Dryad will be well placed to drive the wide adoption of the data management practices that institutions and funders want to see.”
In the coming months, CDL and Dryad will convene institutions to gather input on institutional infrastructure needs for data publishing. They will also modernize the process of information exchange between the data publishing and journal publishing with enhanced publisher integrations. These developments mark the beginning of an extensive effort to better serve researcher needs.
Günter Waibel, CDL’s Associate Vice Provost and Executive Director adds: “Our goal is also to really shake up the data publishing space by offering a community-run open scholarly infrastructure.”

Additional Material
From a Letter by Günter Waibel, Associate Vice Provost & Executive Director, California Digital Library:

After some some self reflection, we have determined that we need to pivot.  To drive adoption, we need to meet researchers in their existing workflows. By necessity, that means working at a scale that transcends the boundaries of the University of California. Try as we might (and we have!), publishers won’t be convinced that they should integrate a systemwide repository into their workflow – however, they will consider promoting repositories that have a broader remit.
As part of this journey, we started talking to Dryad, whom we looked to as experts in building researcher-focused, cross-disciplinary approaches to data curation and data publishing.  In those conversations, it quickly became self-evident that matching Dryad’s model and reach with CDL’s technical expertise and understanding of the institutional space would allow us to make the leap forward we were seeking.  

Direct to Full Letter
From Dryad’s Announcement:

Our joint Dryad-CDL initiative will increase adoption of open data by meeting researchers where they already are. We will leverage the strengths of both organizations to offer new products and services and to build broad, sustainable, and productive approaches to data curation. We plan to move quickly to provide new value:
For researchers: We will launch a new, modern and easier-to-use platform. This will provide a higher level of service, and even more seamless integration into regular workflows than Dryad currently offers
For journals and publishers: We will offer new integration paths that will allow direct communication with manuscript processing systems, better reporting, and more comprehensive curation servicesFor academic institutions: We will work directly with institutions to craft right-sized offerings to meet your needs
For academic institutions: We will work directly with institutions to craft right-sized offerings to meet your needs

Direct to Full Text of Dryad Announcement

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