Mark Hahnel - Disruptive Dissemination of Research Outputs

figshare is a repository where users can make all of their research outputs available in a citable, sharable and discoverable manner. figshare allows users to upload any file format to be visualisable in the browser so that figures, datasets and media can be disseminated in a way that the current scholarly publishing model does not allow. In a research environment, under the current operating system, most data and figures collected or generated during your work is lost, intentionally tossed aside or classified as “junk”, or at worst trapped in silos or locked behind embargo periods. This stifles and limits scientific research at its core, making it much more difficult to validate experiments, reproduce experiments or even stumble upon new breakthroughs that may be buried in your null results.

The dissemination of research data is something that has been done in a well-defined manner for 300 years. With the advent of the internet, many established distribution models have been redefined and improved on. The outputs of academic research are evolving and much of it is becoming digitized and growing in size. There are many good example of how web platforms that efficiently distribute digital content, such as YouTube and itunes. In this presentation, we will explain how figshare is following their lead in an effort to disrupt one of the last remaining content distributing systems to be revolutionised by the internet, and how open access makes all of this possible.

For more information about figshare, visit http://figshare.com/. You can follow Mark at @figshare