LAUSR

Open data is fundamental to the goal of maximizing the value of research. As the culture of science transitions towards an 'open' model (Hampton et al, 2015), many stakeholders such as funding bodies and journals now insist on open data. Molecular Ecology and Molecular Ecology Resources have strived to be at the forefront of Open Data initiatives being amongst the first journals in ecology and evolution to implement mandatory public data archiving in 2011 as part of the Joint Data Archiving Policy (Whitlock et al, 2010). The motivation to improve data archiving was based on a collective view that accessible and reusable data is invaluable to the research community (Whitlock et al, 2010).