SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS AS A DATA SHARING OPTION IN THE GEOSCIENCES

Research data may be disseminated in a variety of ways. One data sharing option is through the supplementary materials that frequently accompany science journal articles. These materials, due to their variety and place on the periphery of scholarly communication, often escape best practices for data management. To discuss this issue, we will present results from a study to explore the content of supplementary materials in 30 high impact geoscience and plant science journals. The study is designed to analyze numerous characteristics of supplementary materials, including the number of supplementary files per article, the types and categories (e.g. videos, tables, code, etc.) of the files, the use of different types of visualizations (e.g. bar charts, scatterplots, maps, etc.), the file types (measured as file extensions), and the sizes of the files. We will also introduce some usage statistics obtained from publishers about how much use supplementary materials are getting. While our study compares two fields, our presentation will focus primarily on the supplementary materials of geoscience journals. Ultimately, this presentation will inform attendees of the manner of data sharing through supplementary materials, including access and usability issues, as well as implications for services in support of data management.