Improving Online Data Sharing with the W3C Data on the Web Best Practices

In January 2017, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) approved a new recommendation, Data on the Web Best Practices (DWBP), with the intention of providing guidance for those who publish datasets of all kinds on the Web. The goals were to enhance communication between publishers and consumers, to promote the re-use of data, and to foster trust in data by consumers. We review the best practices in the context of science gateways and discuss the applicability of each guideline in scientific data sharing.