Eyeballing data: The future standard of publishing?

[Use the link above to view the screenshots of the new features added to figshare as described in the following blog post.] “At figshare, one of the things we are looking to create, is a place where as much research data as possible can be visualised in the browser, regardless of the file format. It is often the case with traditional publishers, that you can only upload your research in a strict number of formats. This is something that figshare aims to fix... this week we updated the platform with a range of updates focussed around visualising data. Increasingly research is being produced in new formats which traditional publishers do not support. Heather Piwowar raised this point in her response to the US government's Request for Information: 'Public Access to Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Publications Resulting From Federally Funded Research', when she stated ‘A public science funder has both a right and a responsibility to communicate its findings in the most generative form it can. Projects funded with public money must be conducted under this premise.‘ For this reason, datasets, videos, code and text files should not be demoted to the supplemental data sections of papers where they exist as downloadable links. Researchers need to have a look at the file before assessing whether the information is present with the file. We have also added the filesizes in the right sidebar, as had been requested by users... As well as providing in browser support for an ever expanding list of file formats, we also introduced the interactive pop-up viewer to explore the research in greater detail. The example below shows csv data which can be sorted by column within the browser. The raw data can be copied and pasted directly out of the page, or eyeballed before choosing to download the paper... The pop up browser is also a great way to browse through filesets, as can be seen below. In order to cater for the growing need for a life science preprint paper , we have added functionality in terms of reading the pdfs in the browser. The pop up browser is also a great way to browse through filesets, as can be seen below. In order to cater for the growing need for a life science preprint paper , we have added functionality in terms of reading the pdfs in the browser... As noted previously on this blog, by referencing the datasets hosted on figshare the content that can be addressed in a single paper becomes unlimited, whilst also helping aid the discovery of the research. This can also be done as a way of archiving research connected to papers that are already in print that would otherwise never see the light of day... As always we would love to hear your feedback, comments and suggestions to make figshare better for you! Ideas are welcomed at info@figshare.com or via twitter, facebook or google+.”