Innovative Actions for the Journal of Global Change Data & Discovery in 2017

Ma, J. H.  Shi, R. X.  Liu, C.^*  Wang, Z. X.

Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China

Sponsored by the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Geographical Society of China (GSC), the Journal of Global Change Data & Discovery was officially launched in March 2017 (quarterly). The new journal, as a new action, was listed at the programs of Innovative Research Platform of IGSNRR, Scientific Communication of GSC and High Level Initiative Journals of CAS in 2017. A short summary of the innovative actions for new journal is as following.

1.   Objectives

The Journal of Global Change Data & Discovery is a peer-reviewed journal in both print version and online openly e-version and published in both English and Chinese. It focuses on publishing data papers relevant with and directly linked to the online datasets published at the Global Change Research Data Publishing & Repository (GCdataPR) and high quality articles on updated data policies, technologies and capacity buildings.  

2.   Diverse in Disciplinary, Time, Space and Scale

One of the most important specifics of this journal is diversity and integration in the global change field. It covers not only by the wide range of disciplines involved such as geography, natural resources, environment, ecosystems, atmosphere, waters, land and oceans, vegetation, socio-economic, etc., but also integrated among them. In addition, multiple scales in time and space make this field more complexed. The journal pays more attention to the comprehensive way to publish multi-dimension articles.

Table 1 shows the proportion of subject areas of the articles published in 2017. The results are very optimistic about the comprehensive subject characteristics of this journal and meet its objective in terms of content coverage.

3.   Publishing Data Papers Linking to the Datasets

  In order to publish a series of updated achievements related to the global change data and

discovery, four columns are arranged in the journal. They are data policies and updated

technologies, data papers, data encyclopedia items, and capacity building and outreaches. 73 data papers (79.35%) were directly linked to the datasets published at GCdataPR in 2017. As one of the regular members of World Data System of International Council of Sciences ( ICSU-WDS), the GCdataPR together with the journal practiced WDS’s open data principles by a new mechanism and a fresh model.

Table 1  Statistics of subject areas of the articles published in 2017

4.   Bilingualism Publishing in One Journal

The method of bilingualism publishing both in English and in Chinese in one journal is

unusual. As one paper in two languages in one journal, following items should be full compliance: author(s) (including role and ranking), author affiliations, foundation items, paper body including figures, tables, datasets re-used, data processing procedures, data products and discoveries, references, citations DOI, and even the number of pages. Nevertheless, there is no priority for two languages, Chinese and English versions are treated equally.

5.   Communications with Academic Communities

For enhancing the new journal’s impact, three actions were taken in 2017. One is organizing professional conferences and workshops, from which the updated data products and achievements were selected for publishing; the second is working with principle investigators of major projects related to the global change studies, such as China GEO data products publishing and the third is lunching the capacity building and communication program in 100 universities in China as well as the world else. 9 seminars on global change research data publishing & sharing were held in 2017 at IGSNRR, Madagascar, Beijing Normal University, Ningxia University, Shandong Normal University, Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Qinghai Normal University, Science Press, and Training program for Developing Countries separately.

As the result, 289 authors from 8 countries, 5 international organizations and 74 research institutes (universities) published their articles in the first volume of the new journal and thousands of scientists from many countries of the world freely accessed these articles. 

The Journal of Global Change Data & Discovery went its first step in 2017 as expected. There are more steps and long way to go in the coming years. From what experienced, innovation is the vital and not easy for the new journal, moreover, keeping the innovation sustainable seems more challenging. In which, the “scientific craftsman spirit” should play more important role for the innovative action.