Data publishing on ScienceDB involves four major steps

1.Registration and login

To publish data on ScienceDB, depositors are required to register and log in to our system. You have the option to log in using the username and password you created during registration, or through third-party authentication such as CAS email/CSD account, GitHub account, ORCID and WeChat account.

If you do not have a ScienceDB account yet, nor a valid third-party authentication account, you have to register. Before registration, you are required to read, understand and agree on our Terms of Services. Please click here for registration

Upon successful registration and login, you can now Submit data.

2.Data submission

Data submission is open to registered users only. If you do not have a valid username and password, please register.

Step1. Identify your purpose

Depositers shall select the purpose of the data submission as the following two conditions:

     Creating a new submission  It is applicable to data that has not been published or hasn't a DOI yet.

     Creating a new submission with an existing DOI  The data has been published on other platforms and has access marks such as DOI.

Step2. Agreement on data submission

Depositors shall read, understand and agree on our terms and conditions to proceed with online submission.

Step3. Submit metadata

To ensure an effective data retrieval, understanding, reuse and citation, we ask depositors to submit a metadata that describes their data. In the checklist below, we have listed required fields that constitute the core elements of a metadata, as well as optional fields which depends on specific scenarios.

The following fields constitute the core elements of a metadata and are required.

Title

The title of your data, which describes data contents in an accurate, comprehensive and featured way. An example is: A dataset of suspended solids concentration inversion for Poyang Lake, China 2000–2013.

Keywords

Keywords showing what your data is about. We ask depositors to provide at least three keywords that best describe your data for optimal searchability and visibility.

Author information

Authors of the data and their biographical information, including their name, institution, address, email, and ORCID (optional). Concrete information is required for communication purposes.

Data description

Data description is a section aiming to facilitate an accurate public understanding of the data described. It functions as a window through which readers get to know what your data is about and how to reuse it.

Subject category

At ScienceDB, we categorize each data into a subject area according to P.R.C. GB/T 13745-2009 Subject Classification and Codes. Depositors are required to identify a subject area when making a submission.

Data use license agreements

ScienceDB provides various data license agreements, including 7 general license agreements: CC0, CC-BY 4.0, CC BY-SA 4.0, CC BY-NC 4.0, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, CC BY-ND 4.0, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, and 3 licenses for database: PDDL, ODC-By, ODbL, as well as 12 software license agreements: MIT, Apache-2.0, AGPL-3.0, LGPL-2.1, GPL-2.0, GPL-3.0, BSD-2-Clause, BSD-3-Clause, MPL-2.0, BSL-1.0, EPL-2.0 and The Unlicense. In addition, ScienceDB provides Restricted Access mode to data files. Data depositors can customize data access conditions. Please click here for a detailed introduction of the “Restricted Access” mode.

      CC0 – click here for more information

      CC BY 4.0 – click here for more information.

      CC BY-SA 4.0 – click here for more information

      CC BY-NC 4.0 – click here for more information.

      CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 – click here for more information

      CC BY-ND 4.0 – click here for more information.

      CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 – click here for more information

      PDDL – click here for more information

      ODC BY – click here for more information

      ODbL – click here for more information

      MIT – click here for more information

      Apache-2.0 – click here for more information

      AGPL-3.0 – click here for more information

      LGPL-2.1 – click here for more information

      GPL-2.0 – click here for more information

      GPL-3.0 – click here for more information

      BSD-2-Clause – click here for more information

      BSD-3-Clause – click here for more information

      MPL-2.0 – click here for more information

      BSL-1.0 – click here for more information

      EPL-2.0 – click here for more information

      The Unlicense – click here for more information

Data types (see more in “data policy”)

      Dataset

      Figures and Tables in Publications

      Slides

      Code data

Additionally, we request supplementary information as follows (optional).

Associated paper information

When your data pertains to, or is used to support, a research paper, we ask you to provide information on the paper, including its title and DOI, which would facilitate a better understanding of your data.

Funding information

Depositors are required to provide funding information if any.

References

Depositors are required to list all resources they used for data production, including data, articles, preprints, online resources, etc.

Step4. Upload data files

Before submission, depositors should read and understand our Terms of services and data submission instructions. At ScienceDB, we do not impose restrictions on the type, format, size or subject area of a data file to be uploaded. Please ensure your data is free of virus. We do not charge depositors for data publishing at present (notices will be given if any changes).

However, to optimize data dissemination, reusability and accessibility, we suggest authors use a format in conformation with relevant industrial standards and disciplinary conventions. We have a list of Recommended Data File Formats which may help depositors adjust their formats.

You can upload data files online either with a web browser or an FTP client, dependent on the size of your data files, which is selectable on the data submission webpage.

  Upload with your web browser

Good for small-sized data files under stable network connections. To do so, users can simply drag local files from your PC to the upload window.

 Upload with an FTP client

Good for large-sized data files, especially under weaker network connections. Users need to download and install an FTP Client (both FileZilla and FlashFXP offer FTP Client download) on a local computer. You will be assigned an FTP username and password on our data submission page. Please follow the instructions and log in to the FTP server to complete your online data submission.

If your data file is larger than 500 GB, please contact us for submission.

Tips for file naming: names of all data files should have practical meanings. We do not recommend the use of numbers in naming conventions unless they are meaningful designators.

Step5. Submit your data

Click “submit” and your submission will immediately be forwarded to our curators for review.

Upon successful submission, your data will be assigned a DOI and a CSTR, which are not yet activated at this stage. They will be registered after your submission has been accepted for publishing on ScienceDB. For more information on unique identifiers, please refer to “FAQ: Do you provide DOI services for all accepted data?”.

3.Data review

Our curators will conduct a formal review of your data submission, including but not limited to the following. You can trace the status of your submission at My Data.

Ethical and regulatory dimensions

We will check the content of your submission to see whether it conforms to our terms of services, for example, whether your data relates to human privacy or ethical issues. Authors are required to submit supplementary documents if their submission involves sensitive data. Submissions involving human- or animal-related experiments shall conform to relevant regulations. For more information on ethical codes, please refer to Data Policies: Codes of Conduct for Authors.

Metadata and data consistency

We will check the data integrity of your submission, for example, whether your Data description contains all core elements (please refer to Data description for more information), whether there is any missing or damaged data, and whether the missing data are properly described and explained.

Data file format check

To ensure good data accessibility, our staff will check whether your data file formats meet our requirements as per Recommended Data File Formats. We may request a reasonable explanation if they do not.

For data review criteria, please refer to Data Policies.

If your submission meets our review and publishing criteria, you will receive an acceptance message and the status of your submission will change to “accepted”.

If your data submission partially fulfills our criteria, you will receive a revise and resubmit letter and the status of your submission will change to “revision”. You can resubmit your data after proper amendments in reference to the review comments. We may request multiple revisions until your submission fully fulfills our criteria.

At ScienceDB, we do not consider data that violate relevant laws, regulations, or ethical codes.

4.Data publishing

Once your data is accepted, we will publish it online at our earliest convenience. The DOI and CSTR of your data will be registered and activated within the next one or two working days. The DOI status of your data is checkable at the DOI website. For more information, please refer to “FAQ: Do you provide DOI services for all accepted data?”

5.Data updates

Once your data is published, the FTP account we assign to you for data uploads will be revoked. Depositors who want data addition or update can Create new version by update, where you can submit an updated version of your data. The new version will be published promptly once approved by our curators. For more information, please refer to “FAQ: How can I update an already published data?”