Value Metrics for Data Repositories in Earth and Environmental Sciences

Abstract:

Data repository activities vary according to their mission, priorities, technology, resources, plus the services they offer and their history of interactions with users. Many already collect information on aspects valuable to their stakeholders, and which are reasonable given their budgets and missions. Here, we present an overview of repository metrics collected or considered by seven research data repositories and two metadata aggregators in the environmental and ecological sciences, including methods used to choose and implement meaningful metrics, the obstacles to standardizing that process across repositories, and the prospects for future implementation.

Metrics were considered and summarized from broad categories: easily/already collected, frequently requiring targeted resources to implement, or metrics that are expected to require significant research or development at a community level. We interpret these candidate metrics, and address several issues: (a) a metric’s usefulness, and whether the most easily collected metrics (e.g., number of downloads), are acceptable correlates of later use or eventual impact, (b) balancing the requirement for free access and privacy-compliant practices with requests from funding agencies, institutions or contributing scientists to report on data usage, (c) future potential for complex metrics (such as policy impact) which might require extensive text mining and artificial intelligence, and (d) the complexities of socio-economic metrics that rely on user surveys and interviews to assess satisfaction and perceived monetary value and scientific impact.