Understanding Data Providers in a Global Scientific Data Hub

In the absence of systematic knowledge about the characteristics and practices of data collections, successful data hubs and other platforms that support collaborative data sharing are unlikely to be designed and built. We begin to fill this gap by performing an in depth case study of a global scientific data hub -- the Encyclopedia of Life -- in which we analyzed the organizational-level identities of 259 data providers and developing a typology of the identities, including: Venerable organizations, Repositories, Citizen science initiatives, Social media platforms, Education communities, and Subsidiaries. This study will provide data aggregation and integration technology designers with background information on data collections.