Open Data Platform Figshare Relaunches with Added Functionality and Unlimited Storage
LONDON – 17 JAN 2012
figshare, a community-based open data platform for scientific research, today relaunches their website and underlying tool, offering additional functionality for users and unlimited public storage space. The project, founded and run by Mark Hahnel, was first launched in January 2011 and relaunches following support from Digital Science, a new division of Macmillan Publishers.
“The support from Digital Science has enabled Figshare to grow from a proof of concept idea into a real solution for researchers looking to get credit for all of their work,” said Mark Hahnel, founder of figshare. “As the UK government commits to transparency and open access to publicly funded data, Figshare will continue to align itself to the best interests of the researchers whilst also nudging users towards the benefits for both themselves and the scientific community of publishing all of their research outputs.”
The new site offers dramatically reduced upload time to mere seconds for all file formats, providing a citable, searchable endpoint for researchers. Figshare offers unlimited storage space for data that is made publicly available on the site, and as of today is also offering 1GB of free storage space for users looking for a secure, private area to store their research. Users of the new site will maintain full control over the management of their research whilst benefiting from global access, version control and secure backups in the cloud.
The new look and feel offers the user a slicker, more intuitive experience that’s accessible for researchers of all disciplines and skill levels.
“We’re thrilled to see Figshare relaunch and provide a more intuitive, seamless experience for users looking to make all of their research data more discoverable and visible,” said Timo Hannay, Managing Director of Digital Science. “This is what we had envisioned our relationship with Figshare to involve, taking a promising idea and helping it develop to serve the needs of the research community.”
The site is constantly being developed and will continue to rely on user feedback to bring new collaborative features as well as simplifying the upload process, with desktop apps in the pipeline. For more information, visit http://figshare.com or follow @Figshare on Twitter for the latest developments.
