Abstract
We collected and analyzed data from e3data.org, which is a global registry of data repository services. We analyzed data profile for three leading Asian economies-Korea, China, and Japan-against the reference data for other participating countries. In particular, we examined how individual countries contribute to the repository, organizational type, versioning and product quality management, and subject tagging. We come to the conclusion that all three Asian countries still fall short in terms of involvement. As for participating institutions, there are 7 from Korea, 64 from China, and 120 from Japan. Among Chinese organizations, 3 are profit, 61 non-profit, and 37 organizations (which yields 1.8%) are involved in repository building. In Japan, there is 1 is commercial and 119 non-profit organizations, of which 57 (3.0%) are involved in repository building. All 7 organizations from Korea are non-profit, and 6 of them (0.3%) are involved in repository building. As regards versioning and product quality management, Korea, China, and Japan are up to par with other countries. Subject analysis reveals that Korea contributes more to geosciences, Japan to physics and geosciences, while China, unlike Korea and Japan, is more active in life sciences. It is hoped that this study will help planning domestic infrastructure for research data repositories with proper consideration for specific research domains and national characteristics.
