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Is it really a "recommender"? Broadly speaking, a "recommender system" attempts to predict the relevance of an item to a user based on information known about the user. This could be profile information, previous ratings or related activities. It is more likely that this system will be a "search engine" in the sense that the user comes with an information need and is looking for a ranked list of candidate repositories. The information need might be a query or the dataset itself.
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Analysis
What tools already exist in this space?
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Reviewing the above publisher lists and registries, we can identify factors in the recommendation of repositories to researchers:
| Factor | Description |
|---|---|
| Funding agency approval | Funding agencies (e.g. NIH) have lists of approved repositories |
| Researcher communities | Some repositories restrict to researchers in certain communities |
| Publisher integration | Publishers (e.g., Elsevier) have arrangements with repositories (e.g., bi-directional linking) |
| Domain/Field | Repositories are often restricted by domain, with some generalist services |
| Technical restrictions | Repositories have technical restrictions (e.g., maximum file size, supported formats) |
| Community mandates | Some research communities have mandated repositories (see Nature list) |
| Data type | Some repositories are restricted to specific types of data. These criteria vary, for example:
Data types are often directly related to domain/field of study. |
| Metadata format | Some repositories are restricted to specific types of metadata (e.g., MIAME) |
| Licensing | Free and unrestricted use or public domain (PLOS) |
| Best practices | Repository adhere's to best practices pertaining to responsible data sharing, digital preservation, citation, and openness (PLOS) |
Publishers, funding agencies, and libraries construct these lists of approved repositories to meet the needs of researchers, Many of these sites now link to centralized services, such as re3data.org. However, re3data.org does not capture all of the information needed to make a recommendation (e.g., C3PR technical restrictions).
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