WASHINGTON, Nov. 4, 2015 — The Publications Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS) announced today a strategic partnership with Figshare (http://figshare.com), an open repository that promotes broad discoverability of scientific research data. The ACS-Figshare partnership will not only provide for improved archiving and access to open data sets and other supporting information that often accompany articles published in the Society's preeminent portfolio of peer-reviewed research journals, but will also better enable reader interaction with, and citation of, such ancillary information of importance to the scientific record.

An interactive widget powered by Figshare enables readers to view myriad data and other supporting information. Authors can submit information in more than 100 file formats, including video and multimedia files, tabular data and crystallographic data, to accompany their peer-reviewed articles. Open access to such supporting data within any ACS journal will be freely available to all users via the Society's publications website (http://pubs.acs.org).   

Researchers publishing with ACS also will now have a mechanism for recognition and citation of their primary research data, which is an important consideration in the context of emerging funder requirements for managing and preserving such underlying information. To aid authors in the fulfillment of these requirements, ACS is facilitating automated deposition of Supporting Information (SI) files to a secure hosting environment, free from any restrictions on size and format. In addition, ACS as publisher will assign Digital Object Identifier (known as DOI) tags to author-submitted SI files, thus enabling a mechanism for systematic citation of such research outputs. An additional benefit of the ACS-Figshare collaboration will be contributing to broader data discoverability, as the SI material will be searchable via Google and other major search engines and Web referral pathways.

"The feedback we're hearing from authors and readers reinforces the value and the importance of the data and other supporting information published in ACS journals," says Jonathan Morgan, director of Digital Strategy for ACS Publications. "Authors need to ensure the visibility and the openness of the data that support their original research. In parallel, our global audience of readers has voiced a need for improved and streamlined access to information that underlies the important scientific advances published by our Society. This new strategic partnership with Figshare seeks to satisfy such author and reader needs."

"We are delighted to be working with the world's largest scientific society to enhance the experience they provide to authors and readers as related to access and use of research data," says Mark Hahnel, CEO of Figshare. "Chemistry is a central science that is integral to both laboratory and computational research; providing access to data and other supporting information is vital to assessing reproducibility of experimental findings and to promoting scientific research integrity. Figshare is pleased to partner with the ACS, who is at the cutting edge in providing publishing technologies and database information services for researchers in chemistry and the allied sciences."

Figshare availability will be rolled out in the coming months across the ACS Publications portfolio of journals. Researchers can access the ACS Publications/Figshare portal at http://acs.figshare.com and preview now the interactive viewer available for an ACS Editors' Choice open access article recently published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/suppl/10.1021/jacs.5b03280.