Successful Data Sharing in Climate Change Research: The FACE Experience.

Free-air CO₂ enrichment (FACE) experiments are generally expensive, so it behooves the organizers to assemble a multi-disciplinary team to measure as many plant and soil responses as possible. This approach allows team members to focus on those measurements for which they are most expert. However, then they must rely on others for other ancillary, complimentary data, and at the same time, each team member needs to share their data with other members. It is especially helpful to have all researchers identify potential papers beforehand for which they will have senior-authorship responsibility. Early clarification of expectations and responsibilities combined with generous co-authorships aid data sharing by promoting the use of resources to change from redundant measurements to complimentary measurements. Deadlines should be established with regard to how long authors can be expected to analyze data, after which the project managers need to apply pressure to release data. Workshops and conferences help ensure that analyses proceed on schedule. Policies need to be established that data are to be shared with other users, so that they can proceed with further analyses such as evaluating plant growth models. However, the manuscripts from such additional activities should not be submitted until the experimenters have had ample time to write their primary reports. Standardization of data formats for describing field experiments by ICASA and other groups has facilitated continued use of experimental data, and at least 18 model evaluations have resulted from sharing of data from the Arizona FACE Project.