Publications have always been used as measures of research outcomes, especially in the academic research, and it is a common assumption that publications are, in fact, the output of research. This is however a simplistic vision of the role of publication in science. It is a vital part of the research cycle, which includes hypothesis formulation, securing future fundings to continue the study, the research process itself and the dissemination of results.  For empirical subjects like biodiversity, authors can persuade readers that their results are accurate, verifiable and repeatable because they have been validated through application of the scientific method. But all that has changed. The advent of the Internet and of Open Access has profoundly changed the accessibility of research outputs. Storing scientific data electronically has now widened the range of investigations and the quantity of information available. In Season 3, Episode 20 'Publications', Cristina di Muri from the Italian National Research Council, CNR, based at the Università del Salento in Lecce, talks about the innovative role of the 'Biodiversity Data Journal' in publishing data papers and service papers. Data papers describe available published datasets, and services papers describe web services available within the Virtual Research Environments that host them. LifeWatch ERIC pays the Pensoft publishing house to manage this Topical Collection, the Biodiversity Data Journal, as a community peer-reviewed and open access online journal so that readers can download the articles for free. Researchers are encouraged to move with the times and publish more data papers and services papers.