TY - BOOK AU - Leonelli Sabina et al. TI - Making open data work for plant scientists PY - 2013/// PB - Journal of Experimental Botany KW - Data sharing KW - Databases KW - Metabolomics KW - Open data KW - Proteomics KW - Publication KW - Repositories KW - Transcriptomics N2 - Despite the clear demand for open data sharing, its implementation within plant science is still limited. this is, at least in part, because open data-sharing raises several unanswered questions and challenges to current research practices. In this commentary,some of the challenges encountered by plant researchers at the bench when generating, interpreting, and attempting to disseminate their data have been highlighted. The difficulties involved in sharing sequencing, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics data are reviewed. The benefits and drawbacks of three data-sharing venues currently available to plant scientists are identified and accessed: (i) journal publication; (ii) university respositories; and (ii) community and project-specific databases. It is concluded that community and project-specific databases are the most useful to researchers interested in effective data sharing, since these databases are explicitly created to meet the researchers needs, support extensive curation, and embody a heightened awareness of what it takes to meet data reusable by others. Such bottom-up and community-driven approaches need to bevalued by the research community, supported by publishers, and provided with long-term sustainable support by funding bodies and government. At the same time, these databases need to be linked to generic databases where possible, in order to be discoverable to the majority of researchers and thus promote effective and efficient data sharing. As we look forward to a future that embraces open access to data and publications, it is essential that data policies, data curation, data integration, data infrastructure, and data funding are linked togrther so as to foster data access and research productivity ER -