Print

Print


To what degree is it unethical or unprofessional to deposit data sets in multiple respositories?

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, the preservation of books and journals was ensured when multiple libraries included books and journals in their collections. This philosopy of preservation was well-articulated with the advent of LOCKSS when they said, "Lot's of copies keep stuff safe." See: https://www.lockss.org/

Now-a-days, we relegate the preservation of the scholarly record -- whether that be books, journals, or data sets -- to centralized networked services. Hmmm.

For decades I have been using the Internet to provide access to library collections and services, and one of things this experience has taught me is, links WILL break. Thus, if I deposit my data sets in multiple Internet locations, then the probability of losing access to the data sets decreases. Yet, like the publishing of articles in multiple journals is seen as unethical, would the publishing of data sets in multiple locations be seen in the same light? One problem with multiple deposits would be generation of multiple DOI's, which begs the question, "Which DOI is the authoritative one?"

Put more simply, it is okay for me to deposit my data sets in my university's institutional repository as well as something like Zenodo? 

--
Eric Morgan <[log in to unmask]>
Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship
University of Notre Dame