Let scientific data sharing become the new normal for Chinese ecologists

Open access to scientific data now is essential to promote the regional and global research, which could provide a comprehensive perspective for better understanding and facilitate better‐informed decision‐making. As the world's second‐largest economy, China plays an important role in many research fields, including ecological and environmental sciences. However, there lacks a comprehensive scientific data sharing mechanism in many fields. Many scientists think that China should establish such a mechanism to promote the development of science and assist in making wiser decisions.

In Ecosystem Health and Sustainability, Peng et al. (2016) provide a comprehensive perspective of the major problems limiting scientific data sharing for the global change science in China. They first conduct a detailed analysis of the roots of major problems from cultural, institutional, and technological perspectives. They also impartially demonstrate the recent progress on data sharing that has been made in China. Peng et al. (2016) highlight and analyze eight key challenges concerning data sharing and propose steps to meet these challenges involving funding agencies, the research community, and individual researchers.

Peng et al. (2016) point out that data quality is the main challenge to data sharing faced by individual scientists. Although ecologists now can acquire more data resources that may be useful for their research, they often have doubts about the utility of much of these data. These doubts are mainly caused by the absence or limited amount of metadata needed to verify data provenance, including data origin and history (Reichman et al. 2011), and the lack of standardized data collection protocols and quality assurance procedures (Peng et al. 2016). The standards for data quality control and metadata standards should be formulated and treated as mandatory requirements for archiving data.

Open data is an irreversible trend in the age of big data. These data resources are expected to accelerate innovation and societal development (Janssen et al. 2012). Several countries have developed open data policies (Cabinet Office 2013). An open scientific data sharing mechanism is necessary, and will have a profound influence on the development of society other than only on science. To move toward scientific data sharing, research funding agencies and the government should recognize the value of and establish better incentives and rewards for data sharing. The research community and individual scientists should think globally and act personally to promote the open data paradigm (Peng et al. 2016). Limited access to data may have a profound influence on the performance of scientific studies throughout China. Scientists should support data sharing activities for the benefit of their own disciplines and of society overall. After all, most of these studies are publicly funded.

Ecology is driven by data and open data will advance the development of ecology (Peng and Lu 2015). Scientific data sharing will also empower ordinary people to participate in the protection of their environment and monitor the implementation of ecological policies. China is experiencing dramatic urbanization and facing many severe ecological issues (Yang 2013). Open access to scientific data is essential for wise decisions related to these issues. For example, after the great 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake, several related ministries, including the Ministry of Civil Affairs, National Health and Family Planning Commission, Ministry of Transport, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and even the Military, quickly and collectively constructed a data sharing mechanism and actively pooled their information without reservation. This cooperation visibly accelerated the evaluation of environmental damage and ecological risk and rendered the corresponding disaster relief more efficient (Dong et al. 2008). Data sharing played an essential role in that project and was certainly inspiring. In addition, a comprehensive scientific data sharing mechanism will allow young ecologists and science students to access better and more reliable data, and encourage them to seek leading roles in the field of ecology in future (Peng and Lu 2015). The work of scientific data sharing should become the new normal that will promote both the field of ecology and its applications to human society.