Dissemination or publication? Some consequences from smudging the boundaries between research data and research papers

<!--HTML--><p align="justify">Project StORe’s repository middleware will enable researchers to move seamlessly between the research data environment and its outputs, passing directly from an electronic article to the data from which it was developed, or linking instantly to all the publications that have resulted from a particular research dataset. Originally conceived as a means of improving information discovery and data curation, it may also be claimed that this enhancement to the functionality of repositories has significantly broadened the meaning of the terms publish and publication. By publishing data that may not have been through a process of peer review, and by making data public before a scholarly article is approved and printed, are we introducing new risks? Is the scholarly article invalidated as a first publication of research results? The process is regulated, including a mechanism for access control and user authentication, and may not therefore be described as open access in the truest sense, but by making source or synthetic research data publicly available in this way raises implications for the identity and purpose of scholarly publications.</p>