As a curator and a coder, I know it is essential to use naming conventions. It is important to employ a consistent approach when naming digital files or software components such as modules or variables. However, when a student assistant asked me recently why it was important not to use spaces in our image file names, I struggled to come up with an answer. “Because I said so,” while tempting, is not really an acceptable response. Why, in fact, is this important? For this blog entry, I set out to answer this question and to see if, along the way, I could develop an “elevator pitch” – a short spiel on the reasoning behind file naming conventions.
Why is it so important to cite data? Books and journal articles have long benefited from an infrastructure that makes them easy to cite, a key element in the process of research and academic discourse. We believe that you should cite data in just the same way that you can cite other sources of information, such as articles and books.
The Data FAIRport initiative is an open movement started as the practical follow up of a Lorentz Workshop in Leiden, The Netherlands, January 2014, named: Jointly designing a Data FAIRport.
The participants of the workshop represented the worlds of research infrastructure and policy, publishing, the semantic web and life sciences research.
swMATH is a freely accessible, innovative information service for mathematical software. swMATH not only provides access to an extensive database of information on mathematical software, but also includes a systematic linking of software packages with relevant mathematical publications.