This is a story about the power of word of mouth.

Earlier this week Franco Pestilli, a postdoc in the Department of Psychology, deposited a data set into the new VISTA Lab collection he established in the Stanford Digital Repository via the Self Deposit system.

This was Pestilli’s first deposit in the SDR. Pestilli needed a place to make available his latest research data associated with a manuscript currently under review. A fellow researcher, Ariel Rokem, pointed Pestilli to the SDR online interface. Rokem was the first Psychology postdoc to use the SDR; he already has two data sets deposited: this first one and then a second one.  

Following Rokem’s tip, Pestilli contacted the SDR staff on Monday evening. The next morning, Amy Hodge responded, granted Pestilli access to the system, and walked Pestilli through the process. By Tuesday mid-afternoon, Pestilli had publilshed and preserved his data in the SDR.

Rokem and Pestilli both know Jonathan Winawer. Winawer published a deposit in the SDR earlier this year.

Rokem, Pestilli, and Winawer all work at Stanford’s Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging with Professor Brian A. Wandell. They do cutting-edge science using MRI technology to better understand the brain and vision.

Wandell knows David Donoho.  Back in December 2012, Donoho deposited the very first self-deposited SDR item with co-author Matan Gavish. (Gavish found the SDR through a Google search.)  That was when Donoho told Wandell about the SDR and started this whole thing. Through word of mouth, one deposit led to four more!