AMSTERDAM, April 29, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Submissions welcome until October 10, 2013

Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, and IEDA (Integrated Earth Data Applications), an NSF-funded data facility in the geosciences at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, announced today that they are jointly launching a new competition, the International Data Rescue Competition, which aims to improve preservation and access of research data in the earth sciences discipline. The challenge invites members of the international geosciences community who have worked on efforts that advance preservation and access of research data, particularly dark data, to share their work and the varied ways that these data are being processed, stored and used.

In launching the competition, Elsevier and IEDA hope to showcase the breadth, depth and diversity of existing initiatives for disclosing research data within the field of geosciences, to promote recognition of these efforts and to encourage new developments in this direction. In addition, they hope to encourage the establishment of a multi-disciplinary community across all areas of geosciences to discuss the multitude of tools and methods that are being developed to rescue data from oblivion and stimulate the sharing of knowledge, tools and standards pertaining to making research data reusable across various earth and environmental sciences domains.

As part of the submission process each participant must describe different aspects of their data rescue project, including:

• Examples of the data as it looked before and after the rescue process;
• A description of ways in which the data could be or is used after being made available electronically;
• A description of metadata, models and standards and the data repository or collection used to make the data available to be accessed and used;
• A description of the rescue process, whether it be manual, automated, or a combination of both.

A cross-disciplinary panel of judges will assess the submissions and invite the top ten proposals to a special award ceremony to be held in December 2013. The award will consist of a Data Rescue trophy and $ 5000.

The judges' panel is formed by:

• Linda Gundersen, US Geological Survey
• Helen Glaves, British Geological Society
• Kerstin Lehnert, IEDA (Chair)
• Mark Parsons, Research Data Alliance
• Lesley Wyborn, Geoscience Australia
• Ilya Zaslavsky, University of California, San Diego

Researcher proposals are welcome to be submitted until October 10, 2013. Details of the competition criteria and a link to a submission template can be found on the Data Rescue Award website: http://researchdata.elsevier.com/datachallenge

Notes for Editors

For more information about the initiative, contact organizers: Anita de Waard, Vice President Research Data Collaborations, Elsevier Research Data Services: a.dewaard@elsevier.com, http://researchdata.elsevier.com/waard or Kerstin Lehnert, Director, IEDA: lehnert@ldeo.columbia.edu   

About Integrated Earth Data Applications (IEDA)

IEDA or Integrated Earth Data Applications is a community-based data facility funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) to support, sustain, and advance the geosciences by providing data services for observational solid earth data from the Ocean, Earth, and Polar Sciences. IEDA systems enable these data to be discovered and reused by a diverse community now and in the future. IEDA operates and maintains system such as the EarthChem Library, the Marine Geoscience Data System, PetDB, Geochron, GeoMapApp, and the System for Earth Sample Registration SESAR. http://www.iedadata.org

About Elsevier
Elsevier is a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include ScienceDirect, Scopus, Reaxys, ClinicalKey and Mosby's Suite, which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite and MEDai's Pinpoint Review, which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.

A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group plc, a world leading provider of professional information solutions. The group employs more than 30,000 people, including more than 15,000 in North America. Reed Elsevier Group plc is owned equally by two parent companies, Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. Their shares are traded on the London, Amsterdam and New York Stock Exchanges using the following ticker symbols: London: REL; Amsterdam: REN; New York: RUK and ENL.

Media contact

Harald Boersma
Director Corporate Relations, Elsevier
+31-20-4852736
h.boersma@elsevier.com

SOURCE Elsevier