Editorial - Launch of the Freshwater
Metadata Journal (FMJ)
Astrid Schmidt-Kloiber, Robert Vogl, Aaike De Wever & Koen
Martens

Freshwater Metadata Journal
DOI 10.15504/fmj.2014.1
ISSN 2312-6604
Published online: 2014-10-07

Published by University of Natural Resources andLife Sciences, Institute of Hydrobiology andAquatic Ecosystem Management, BOKU - Vienna

Background of the BioFresh metadatabase
During the past four years, the EU funded project “BioFresh” (Biodiversity of Freshwater Ecosystems: Status,Trends, Pressures, and Conservation Priorities; www.freshwaterbiodiversity.eu) built an information
platform with access to available datasets on the distribution, status and trends of global freshwater
biodiversity, to be used by scientists, ecosystem managers and the interested public. From a data management
point of view, the main objectives were to mobilise freshwater biodiversity related datasets, register them inthe BioFresh metadatabase on the one hand and to present freshwater biodiversity data (mostly species
occurrence data) on the BioFresh data portal on the other hand. Both turned out to be major challenges.
The value of metadata – i.e. the who, why, what, when and where of a given dataset – in ecological sciences iswell recognised by now (see for example Fegraus et al. 2005, Michener et al. 1997, Michener 2006, Michener& Jones 2012) and collecting such data is already getting common in the scientific community. A
metadatabase – first initiated by the WISER project (Hering et al. 2012, Schmidt-Kloiber et al. 2012) – wasadapted for a more general use within BioFresh and tools to fill in and query the collected information weremade available through the BioFresh data portal (data.freshwaterbiodiversity.eu).

Data mobilising challenges in BioFresh
As already stated above, data mobilisation within BioFresh was not always straightforward. While some of thedata holders addressed us with the wish to publish their data through BioFresh, others were reluctant to doso. There may be several reasons for this reluctance (Schmidt-Kloiber et al. 2012):• time & financial constraint: the preparation of heterogeneous data and the provision of accurate
information and sufficient documentation for the reuse of data requires time and therefore financial
resources of the scientists involved;

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Schmidt-Kloiber, Vogl, De Wever & Martens••

usage constraint: scientists fear that their data might be used for an incorrect purpose or in anincorrect way;
intellectual property rights constraint: scientists believe that releasing data means abandoning
intellectual property rights.

A comprehensive and accurate documentation of a dataset – as made possible through the BioFreshmetadatabase – avoids at least the latter two issues and will pave the way to fully open access data.

Rationale of the Freshwater Metadata JournalThere is evidence that online publication of research data benefits scientists (Costello 2009) and Chavan &Penev (2011) advertise the “(meta)data paper” as a mechanism to incentivise actual data publishing. Recentefforts to make freshwater data easily available (see Penev et al. 2011 for an overview) include the initiative tomobilise freshwater biodiversity data through requiring them together with journal publications (De Weveret al. 2012) or the creation of a dedicated journal to encourage data publication and mobilise small datasets(“Biodiversity Data Journal”; Smith et al. 2013). With the creation of the Freshwater Metadata Journal(FMJ) we want to support such ventures and bring about a change of perception regarding data publishingwithin in the freshwater community.
After entering information about a dataset in the BioFresh metadatabase, a fully automated process creates a
metadata article in the FMJ, thereby saving the scientists’ time (for a pictorial representation of the entire
workflow, see Figure 1). After an editorial review process, the article is assigned a digital object identifier(DOI) and is made accessible on the FMJ website (www.freshwaterjournal.eu), thereby making the dataset
information citeable and traceable, just like any other standard scientific article. We are convinced that such
FMJ articles will make scientists’ study efforts more visible to other researchers. The easy publishing process
as well as the possibility for citation should serve as incentives for scientists to make information on a dataset,and finally the dataset itself, publicly available, again helping to create more recognition of one’s work.
The FMJ has an ISSN registration and publishing is completely in open access and fully free of charge. The
editor in chief is Astrid Schmidt-Kloiber (Institute of Hydrobiology & Ecosystem Management, BOKU –University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria), who currently also reviews all articles
together with the metadatabase quality control team of BOKU (Anne Hartmann, Ilse Stubauer). An advisory
editorial board consists of former participants of the BioFresh project, but will be expanded with newmembers in the future.
We thus herewith proudly announce the launch of the Freshwater Metadata Journal. Please check out ourwebpage (www.freshwaterjournal.eu) and do not hesitate to contact us for any further information or if you
need assistance whilst submitting your metadata.

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Editorial – Launch of the Freshwater Metadata Journal (FMJ)

Figure 1: Workflow of publishingmetadata in the BioFreshmetadatabase (upper part) and in
the Freshwater Metadata Journal(lower part).

Acknowledgements
The initiation of this journal was funded by the BioFresh project (Biodiversity of Freshwater Ecosystems:
Status, Trends, Pressures, and Conservation Priorities; EU Framework Programme 7; contract number
226874; www.freshwaterbiodiversity.eu). Final developments were realised within the MARS project(Managing Aquatic ecosystems and water Resources under multiple Stress; EU Framework Programme 7;
contract number 603378; www.mars-project.eu).

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