Tony makes a great point in that to encourage authors to submit data, we need to offer them tools to make it easy – we (and by ‘we’ I mean journals in general, not just Nature ones) make authors jump through a lot of hoops to submit a paper – probably too many hoops; but these things don’t change overnight – however much some of us on the ‘inside’ might wish them to. As long as journals are receptive to authors wanting to submit data – which I know Nature Chemistry and those at the RSC are, then at least there is a possibility for change; but it must be driven by the academic community. Whether it’s a top-notch journal or otherwise, it is not a practical model to force authors to submit data. The ‘make it easy’ argument is supported by the fact that the only type of data file we actually host as Supplementary Information are cif files – and these are standard when you get a crystal structure. The problem is that for other types of experimental data, there is no widely recognised universal standard (ask a bunch of practising chemists what JCAMP files are and I bet not many will know).

Perhaps it is because chemistry is an older discipline that it is harder for change to be embraced. Because systems biology is a newer field, it is not weighed down by ‘old-fashioned’ ways of doing things – or not so much anyway.

The other thing to consider is that while there are a number of people very vocal about publishing chemistry in new ways – this is still very much a small number. There is a large silent majority – what do they want? I do not say this to justify not changing anything, but I really do believe that this needs to be a community driven effort. If more people submit data to journals that are capable and willing to host it, then this practice will likely gain traction. As new generations of graduate students become academics and in turn their students know nothing other than the digital age, things will get easier. But, a journal cannot mandate this.

And as for references, I agree. But if you put the major chemistry publishers in a room and try and get them to agree on a format for references, it would get very messy…

Stuart comments that authors are generally not willing to submit data. I think this is generally true. It is work to prepare data and binary file formats are not supported for even general spectral data and have to be converted to JCAMP for example. It’s possible, but it’s work. Some people will do it but they are few and far between. In my judgment many of the enhancements of the future will come from greater support from the authors and we have to provide tools to make it easy for them. We’re all busy and MORE work is unlikely to create a following. We’re building tools to make it easy for authors…