Best practices in data management and metadata standards for Chemistry data are still mostly under development with the exception of areas related to mature �big data� fields such as geochemistry. In order to support data sharing in Chemistry research communities, our first step is to identify the common types of research data produced by Chemists. These different types of data can be grouped according to different research themes meaningful for a specific research community to form the Data Type Profile (DTP) of the research community. For example, for organic synthesis, its DTP can include chemical structures, reaction schemes, physical and chemical properties, spectral data, thermodynamic data of reactions, chromatographic data, and crystallographic data etc. and the specific types of data under these categories. The basic DTP can be enriched with relevant data lifecycle stories to form a comprehensive DTP and then be used to propose metadata standards and best practices in managing and sharing data. Here, as a case study, publications authored by principal investigators (PIs) in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Michigan were retrieved from Web of Science and grouped by PIs. Those journal articles published during the past two years were selected as the main reference set. The data originated from these labs and appeared in texts, tables, figures, captions, and supplements of the articles were identified, described and categorized. The descriptions were collected in a FileMaker database to be grouped under different research themes so that we could construct DTP for each research theme instead of traditional sub-discipllines. By completing DTP for the research themes in the Chemistry Department, we will obtain a representative scope of the common types of data to the interest of chemists and use it as the foundation to facilitate data sharing in Chemistry.

Profiling common types of research data produced by chemists at the University of Michigan

247th National Meeting (2014)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.