The birth of IUCrData: a new era in data publication

The International Union of Crystallography is delighted to announce the launch of a new open-access data publication, IUCrData. This innovative publication aims to provide short descriptions of crystallographic datasets and datasets from related scientific disciplines, as well as facilitating access to the data.

The first phase of this venture enables authors rapidly to publish brief, peer-reviewed Data Reports on individual crystal structures, making them readily available to the scientific community.

A global team of 25 editors forms the editorial board of IUCrData, bringing a wealth of experience and enthusiasm to the new data publication.

Data Reports in IUCrData include the following components:

  • a short abstract
  • an interactive 3D structure representation
  • a structure description section
  • a synthesis and crystallization section
  • relevant figures
  • tabular structural data
  • literature references.

A key characteristic of Data Reports is the brevity of the discussion. The metric data and plots appear in the main body of the publication and provide the bulk of the information. Readers are able to access the complete diffraction data, the submitted crystallographic information file (CIF) and the full checking output.

By using the IUCr’s publCIF software, which can be downloaded free of charge from http://iucrdata.iucr.org/services/cif/publcif/, submitting a Data Report to IUCrData is easy.

To find out more about the new open-access data publication IUCrData and keep up to date with announcements on future phases of this project, go to http://iucrdata.iucr.org.