The DLI Service: an open one-for-all data-literature interlinking service
Sharing links between the published literature and datasets is crucial to achieve the full potential of research data publishing. This article presents the coordination and implementation efforts of the ICSU-WDS/RDA Data Publishing Services Working Group (DPS-WG) and the OpenAIRE infrastructure towards realizing and operating the DLI Service, an open and one-for-all data-literature interlinking service. The service is the result of an (open to others) collaboration between major stakeholders in the field of data publishing and populates and provides access to a graph of dataset-literature and dataset-dataset links collected from a variety of major data centers, publishers, and research organizations. Based on feedback from content providers and consumers, the service will also enable the incremental refinement of an interlinking data model and exchange format, towards shaping up a universal, cross-platform, cross-discipline solution for sharing dataset-literature links.
Introduction and vision Challenges to realize the full potential of research data exist at different levels - from cultural aspects, such as proper rewards and incentives, to policy and funding, and to technology. The challenges are interconnected and impact a diversity of stakeholders in the research data landscape - including researchers, research organizations, funding bodies, data centers, and publishers. To make progress in overcoming barriers and building a stronger research data infrastructure, it is essential that the different stakeholders work together to address common issues and move forward on a common path. Alongside other organizations, ICSU World Data Systems (ICSU-WDS), the Research Data Alliance (RDA), and OpenAIRE2020 provide useful forums for such collaborations. In particular, they are today working in synergy on an initiative that brings together different parties in the research data landscape with the objective of creating the Data Literature Interlinking Service (DLI Service), i.e. “an open, freely accessible, web based service that enables its users to identify datasets that are associated with a given article, and vice versa” [RDA Data Publishing Services Working Group (DPS-WG) Case Statement]. At the moment of writing, members of the initiative include: the RDA Publishing Data Services Working Group, the OpenAIRE infrastructure, the Research Data Alliance (RDA), ICSU World Data Systems, STM, CrossRef, DataCite, ORCID, the National Data Service, and the RMap project. The vision is that of moving away from the large set of bilateral arrangements that characterizes the research ecosystem today, towards establishing common standards and tools that sit in the middle and interact with all parties. Such a transition would facilitate interoperability between platforms and systems operated by the different parties, reduce systemic inefficiencies in the ecosystem, and ultimately enable new tools and functionalities to the benefit of researchers.