iPlant will assign DOIs to datasets made public through its infrastructure. For the BIEN db data, the plan is:

• to have a DOI for the (not publicly accessible but mirrored) BIEN3 database
• to have a DOI for each publicly accessible analytical table (such as viewFullOccurrence). Martha estimates there will be only 5-10 analytical tables.

For the DOIs, BIEN will need to provide:

• an abstract describing each analytical table. It may be useful to include the use cases (scientific questions) the data table is designed to address.
  • Question: For the purposes of transparency, will general information about records that cannot be included in the public analytical tables be provided as part of the “abstract” describing each analytical table? This would inform users of the nature of records that cannot be made public and the reasons why. Some data providers do this on a per record basis, but Martha said this level of granularity is beyond what BIEN can provide – certainly for the first release.
• the metadata specified by DataCite (see the attached document).