How can we connect and track use of physical samples and associated data?

The Physical Samples Curation Cluster has been developing author guidelines and recommendations for journal publications involving physical samples. These guidelines were designed to help journal article authors improve the discoverability, interoperability, use of samples/specimens in the future, making samples and associated research outputs more open and FAIR. For a portion of the session, we will review these guidelines and use cases for referencing related samples and data in papers. 

In the process of developing these guidelines, we identified many areas of work needed to enable authors to efficiently reference samples and related data, link related samples and data, and track their use. The study of complex environmental processes may involve diverse collections of samples and associated field or laboratory measurements, sensors, remote sensing data, and more. However, there are currently no widely adopted practices for linking or citing samples and their associated data in published research. Presentations will address current efforts and infrastructural capacity to connect and track use of related samples and data. We will then work together to outline community practices and coordination, and/or infrastructure still needed to make sample-related research more open and FAIR. 

Here we provide the slide deck for a conference session hosted by the ESIP Physical Samples Curation Cluster during the 2023 ESIP Summer Meeting held in Burlington, VT, USA