The Movebank Data Repository
The Movebank Data Repository is Movebank's formal archiving service, hosted by the Communication, Information, Media Centre of the University of Konstanz. The data in Movebank are unique observations of animal movements that can never be reproduced, and should be available to answer new questions decades from now. The Repository complements Movebank's flexible tools for sharing, managing and analyzing animal movement data throughout all stages of research by publishing completed research datasets and analysis workflows to provide researchers with citable data publications and ensure long-term access to data and repeatable analysis. The Repository strives toward the FAIR Principles to improve the findability, accessibility, interoperability and reuse of data.
Published data
As of November 2021, the Repository contains 245 curated, publicly archived datasets containing 130 million locations describing movements and behavior of 11,700 animals, representing 189 species. These data underlie over 300 peer-reviewed papers published in 107 journals by over 600 data authors.
How it works
The Repository hosts two collections:
Data packages: Each published dataset, or data package, relates to a study in Movebank. If a study in Movebank has a related publication in the Repository, the DOI and a link will be shown in the Study Details. Published data are associated with a published written description of the data, typically a peer-reviewed journal article.
Analysis workflows: During 2022, we are adding support for publishing analysis workflows developed in MoveApps. Each published workflow relates to at least one study in Movebank and is associated with a written publication reporting the analysis. Workflows contain the source code for each App in the workflow and information needed to replicate the working environment and settings used.
See the Submission Guidelines for more about the review process and to prepare your data to publish. To begin a submission, please complete our Depositor Agreement.
For more guidance on deciding whether to submit data for publication and how to prepare data, read our best practices for archiving studies on Movebank and answers to frequently asked questions about the repository. For other questions, contact data curator Sarah Davidson at sdavidson@ab.mpg.de.
What's the difference between published and unpublished studies in Movebank? Here are the differences at a glance:
| Feature | Details | Movebank | Movebank Data Repository |
|---|---|---|---|
| Store | Store data. | X | X |
| Find | Search for and find data. | X | X+ |
| Collaborate | Find people and start new projects. | X | X |
| Format | Store data using a shared data model and vocabulary. | X | X |
| Manage | Manage data during collection and analysis. | X | |
| Share selectively | Share your data with colleagues. | X | |
| Share with the public | Make your data available to the public. | X | X |
| Reuse | Reuse data for new purposes. | X | X+ |
| Data review | Ensure the data are complete and correct. | X | X+ |
| Data license | License the data to allow future re-use. | X | X |
| Data citation | Have a citable reference for your dataset. | X | |
| DOI | Obtain a unique digital object identifier for your dataset, with a link to the data that won't change over time. | X | |
| Find anywhere | Be discovered beyond Movebank through search engines like the Web of Science's Data Citation Index and Google's Dataset Search. | X |
Recognition
The Movebank Data Repository's data package collection is certified as a trustworthy repository by CoreTrustSeal. The Repository is recommended by a number of journals and publishers to meet data archiving policies, including the British Ecological Society, the Journal of Zoology, Oikos and Springer Nature. We have also received support from FAIRsFAIR in obtaining CoreTrustSeal certification and improving repository interoperability.
