Pf8: an open dataset of Plasmodium falciparum genome variation in 33,325 worldwide samples is a dataset published in Wellcome Open Research (2025). On theSindex it has a DataRank of 0.369, placing it in the top 48.6% of the data-sharing corpus. It has been cited 9 times, with 6 citing works in its 1-hop citation network. Its calibrated FAIR score is 79/100.
Ranks in the top 49% for downstream scientific impact
DataRank reads this dataset's downstream impact straight off the citation graph — no black box, no proprietary weighting. How is this computed?
FAIR checklist signals are shown for context only and do not affect DataRank scoring.
Full FAIR picture · advisory
The headline score is computed from the scored criteria — the fact-shaped checks (a repository, an accession, a licence) that two independent models agree on. The advisory criteria below are real FAIR guidance but rest on judgment calls that models read differently, so they inform without moving the number.
“Data availability This project contains the following underlying data that are available as an online resource: https://www.malariagen.net/resource/36 .”
The identifier given is a URL, not a persistent identifier scheme (DOI, Handle, etc.). [majority verdict 'partial' (4/5 passes agreed)]
RDA-F1-01D — FAIR Data Maturity Model: 'Data is identified by a persistent identifier' (priorit · RDA-F1-02D — FAIR Data Maturity Model: 'Data is identified by a globally unique identifier' · FsF-F1-02D — F-UJI/FAIRsFAIR: 'Data is assigned a persistent identifier'
“Data availability This project contains the following underlying data that are available as an online resource: https://www.malariagen.net/resource/36 .”
The holder is a project website (MalariaGEN resource page), not a named repository from the list. [majority verdict 'partial' (4/5 passes agreed)]
RDA-F4-01M — FAIR Data Maturity Model: metadata is offered so it can be harvested and indexed ( · NIH DMS Policy Element 4 (NOT-OD-21-014) — name the repository where data will be archived · NSTC Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories (2022) — 'Long-Term Sustainability', 'Reten
“Data availability This project contains the following underlying data that are available as an online resource: https://www.malariagen.net/resource/36 .”
The dataset identifier (URL) appears only in the body text, not as a reference-list entry. [majority verdict 'partial' (4/5 passes agreed)]
FORCE11 Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles (2014) — data should be cited as a first- · RDA-F3-01M — metadata clearly and explicitly includes the identifier of the data it describes · FsF-F3-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata includes the identifier of the data it describes'
Advisory · not in the published score
“This project contains the following underlying data that are available as an online resource: https://www.malariagen.net/resource/36.”— not found in the paper; verdict downgraded
The statement points to a URL that is a repository record for the data. [downgraded to 'partial' — no verifiable quote from the paper]
Colavizza, Hrynaszkiewicz, Staden, Whitaker & McGillivray (2020), 'The citation advantage of li · Springer Nature research data policy — Data Availability Statements: standard statement templat · RDA-F3-01M — metadata clearly and explicitly includes the identifier of the data it describes
“Table 1. Breakdown of Pf8 samples by geography.”
The paper includes an itemised table caption describing the dataset's composition. [majority verdict 'yes' (3/5 passes agreed)]
RDA-F2-01M — 'Rich metadata is provided to allow discovery' (priority Essential) · FsF-F2-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata includes descriptive core elements to support data findability' · FsF-R1-01MD — F-UJI: 'Metadata specifies the content of the data'
“Data are available open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC-BY 4.0).”
The data are stated to be openly available with no precondition.
RDA-A1.1-01D — 'Data is accessible through a free access protocol' · FsF-A1-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata contains access level and access conditions of the data' · NSTC Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories (2022) — 'Free and Easy Access'
Advisory · not in the published score
“Data are available open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC-BY 4.0).”
The paper explicitly labels the data as 'open access'.
FsF-A1-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata contains access level and access conditions of the data' · RDA-A1-01M — metadata contains information to enable the user to get access to the data · COAR Controlled Vocabularies — Access Rights v1.0 (open / embargoed / restricted / metadata-onl
The data are not human-subject or sensitive; no gatekeeper is named.
NIH Genomic Data Sharing Policy (NOT-OD-14-124) — controlled-access via a Data Access Committee · RDA-A1.2-01D — 'Data is accessible through an access protocol that supports authentication and · NIH DMS Policy Element 5 (NOT-OD-21-014) — Access, Distribution, or Reuse Considerations (conse
No sentence in the paper states how long the data will remain available or commits to persistence. [majority verdict 'no' (4/5 passes agreed)]
NIH DMS Plan Element 4 (NOT-OD-21-014) — Data Preservation, Access, and Associated Timelines · NSTC Desirable Characteristics (2022), Organizational Infrastructure: 'Retention Policy' · RDA-A2-01M — 'Metadata is guaranteed to remain available after data is no longer available'
“Short variants genotypes: Genotype calls on 12,493,205 SNPs and short indels in all 33,325 samples from 34 countries, available both as variant call format (VCF) and Zarr files.”
VCF and Zarr are open, community-standard formats. [majority verdict 'yes' (4/5 passes agreed)]
FsF-R1.3-02D — F-UJI: 'Data is available in a file format recommended by the target research co · RDA-R1.3-02D — data is expressed in a machine-understandable community standard · RDA-I1-01D — data uses a knowledge representation expressed in a standardised format
Advisory · not in the published score
No data or metadata community standard (e.g., MIAME, ISA-Tab) is named for the data. [majority verdict 'no' (4/5 passes agreed)]
RDA-R1.3-01M — 'Metadata complies with a community standard' (priority Essential) · RDA-R1.3-01D — 'Data complies with a community standard' · RDA-I2-01M — '(Meta)data use vocabularies that follow FAIR principles'
“Pf7: an open dataset of Plasmodium falciparum genome variation in 20,000 worldwide samples [version 1; peer review: 3 approved]. Wellcome Open Res. 2023; 8:22. 10.12688/wellcomeopenres.18681.1”— not found in the paper; verdict downgraded
The Pf7 dataset DOI is a qualified reference to another resource. [downgraded to 'no' — no verifiable quote from the paper] [majority verdict 'no' (3/5 passes agreed)]
RDA-I3-01M — '(meta)data include references to other (meta)data' · RDA-I3-03M — 'metadata includes qualified references to other metadata' · FsF-I3-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata includes links between the data and its related entities'
“Data are available open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC-BY 4.0).”
CC BY 4.0 is an open standard licence.
RDA-R1.1-01M — 'Metadata includes information about the licence under which the data can be reu · RDA-R1.1-02M — 'Metadata refers to a standard reuse licence' · RDA-R1.1-03M — 'Metadata refers to a machine-understandable reuse licence'
“We now present Pf8, the latest global dataset of 33,325 Plasmodium falciparum genomes.”
The dataset is identified by the version token 'Pf8'. [majority verdict 'yes' (3/5 passes agreed)]
DataCite Metadata Schema 4.6 — the 'Version' property · RDA-R1.2-01M — provenance information (which version was used is provenance) · NSTC Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories (2022) — 'Provenance', 'Retention Policy'
“The NextFlow pipeline used for calling short variants (SNPs and short indels) can be found at https://github.com/malariagen/malariagen-pf8-snp-indel-calling .”
Machine-resolvable code repository URLs are given for the custom pipelines. [majority verdict 'yes' (4/5 passes agreed)]
NIH DMS Policy Element 2 (NOT-OD-21-014) — 'Related Tools, Software and/or Code' · FAIR4RS Principles v1.0 (Chue Hong et al., 2022; RDA/FORCE11/ReSA) — FAIR Principles for Resear · FORCE11 Software Citation Principles (Smith, Katz & Niemeyer, 2016, PeerJ CS 2:e86)
“This work was supported by Wellcome [204911] [206194]; Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation [INV-007590] [INV-001927] [INV-068808].”
Award numbers are provided for the funders.
DataCite Metadata Schema 4.6 — 'FundingReference' property (funderName, funderIdentifier, award · Crossref Funder Registry — canonical funder identifiers for funding metadata · RDA-F2-01M — rich metadata provided to allow discovery (funding is part of the descriptive reco
Advisory · not in the published score
“All reads not aligning to a human reference genome were mapped with BWA mem version 0.7.17 to the 3D7 v3 P. falciparum reference genome. Samtools version 1.13 produced sorted and corrected BAM files in which duplicates were marked using GATK version 4.2.5.0 MarkDuplicates.”— not found in the paper; verdict downgraded
Specific tools and versions are named for data production. [downgraded to 'partial' — no verifiable quote from the paper] [majority verdict 'partial' (4/5 passes agreed)]
RDA-R1.2-01M — 'Metadata includes provenance information according to community- specific standa · FsF-R1.2-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata includes provenance information about data creation or generati · W3C PROV-O (W3C Recommendation, 2013) — the entity/activity/agent model of provenance
“Breakdown of Pf8 samples by geography.”
Variable definitions are provided within the article (e.g., Table 1), not in a separate documentation object shipped with the data. [majority verdict 'partial' (3/5 passes agreed)]
RDA-R1-01M — '(Meta)data are richly described with a plurality of accurate and relevant attribu · FsF-R1-01MD — F-UJI: 'Metadata specifies the content of the data' · NIH DMS Policy Element 3 (NOT-OD-21-014) — Standards (documentation and metadata to accompany t
Calibrated FAIR score — a parallel quality metric, independent of the DataRank citation score. See the full evaluation →
Base Score Contribution
0.345
From this paper's citation signal
Citation Network Contribution
0.0233
From 2 citing papers with measurable signal
Ranked by each citer's contribution to N(p) — log1p(Cq) divided by its reference count — out of 6 citers.
Wellcome Trust
Grant: 204911
Wellcome Trust
Grant: 206194
Gates Foundation
Grant: INV-007590
Gates Foundation
Grant: INV-001927
Gates Foundation
Grant: INV-068808