Abstract

Data journals and data papers have grown and considered an important scholarly practice in the paradigm of open science in the context of data sharing and data reuse. This study investigates a total of 713 data papers published in Scientific Data in terms of author, citation, and subject areas. The findings of the study show that the subject areas of core authors are found as the areas of Biotechnology and Physics. An average number of co-authors is 12 and the patterns of co-authorship are recognized as several closed sub-networks. In terms of citation status, the subject areas of cited publications are highly similar to the areas of data paper authors. However, the citation analysis indicates that there are considerable citations on the journals specialized on methodology. The network with authors’ keywords identifies more detailed areas such as marine ecology, cancer, genome, database, and temperature. This result indicates that biology oriented-subjects are primary areas in the journal although Scientific Data is categorized in multidisciplinary science in Web of Science database.