Zzzoot

F rancine Berman's call for a research data census in the U.S. recognizes the reality that the valuable research assets produced by public (and private) research funding is uncounted, mostly unmanaged, and destined to be, or in the process of being, degraded, damaged and lost. Lost to future research, re-use, re-purposing. While a census is useful when your knowledge about a topic is effectively zero , as in this case, I don't think that it is a good ongoing solution to this particular problem. Distributed and open research data repositories, open standards like OAI-PMH , rich metadata (and the tools to create/manage them) and the will of funding agencies and research organizations can all come together to make a real-time census possible. But an initial census is clearly needed, in order properly discover the complete nature of the research data problem, in order to plan the processes, infrastructure and organizations to properly deal it. Berman, F. 2010. We Need a Research D...

Research data and metadata - usually derived from an experiment or series of experiments - is in the hot focus of the researcher during the experiment and the subsequent interpretation, paper writing and publishing. But once the researcher has moved on to their next effort, this data is very much at risk. Often (read ' the-rule-rather-than-the-exception '), the data is not properly managed and archived, and resides as a single copy on the researcher's desktop or maybe research server. In addition, the metadata is minimal or non-existent, and if it does exist is only interpretable by the researcher and their colleagues or students. Over time, the chance that this data will be lost or useful knowledge about it forgotten by the researcher increases, and the information content of the data and metadata rapidly decreases. Some events can seriously accelerate this decrease: data loss (media failure, computer replacement, other serious accidents or failures, etc); change of care...

The U.S. Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has produced a new report ( E-Science and Data Support Services ).

I am at the 2010 Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL2010) at Surfer's Paradise in Queensland, Australia. Among the many interesting papers are two papers very relevant to those interested in research data issues. [JCDL2011 will be held in Ottawa, Canada June 13-17 2011. I am the general chair for the conference] Digital Libraries for Scientific Data Discovery and Reuse: From Vision to Practical Reality Jillian Wallis, Matthew Mayernik, Christine Borgman and Alberto Pepe Abstract. Science and technology research is becoming not only more distributed and collaborative, but more highly instrumented. Digital libraries provide a means to capture, manage, and access the data deluge that results from these research enterprises. We have conducted research on data practices and participated in developing data management services for the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing since its founding in 2002 as a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center. ...

In the recent editorial ( Am Nat 2010. Vol. 175, pp. 145–146 ) of The American Naturalist , it was announced that the journals " The American Naturalist , Evolution , the Journal of Evolutionary Biology , Molecular Ecology , Heredity , and other key journals in evolution and ecology..." would be introducing data archiving policies supporting access, re-use and long term preservation. These policies are to be put in place in one year, and the example policy for the The American Naturalist is given: This journal requires, as a condition for publication, that data supporting the results in the paper should be archived in an appropriate public archive, such as GenBank, TreeBASE, Dryad , or the Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity. Data are important products of the scientific enterprise, and they should be preserved and usable for decades in the future. Authors may elect to have the data publicly available at time of publication, or, if the technology of the archive allow...

Today in Washington. D.C, the CODATA organized Symposium on the Data Sharing Plans and on the Scientific Benefits of Data Sharing in GEOSS was held. Among other things, it looked at the draft GEOSS data sharing plan: The Plan, now endorsed by 80 government Members and 56 Participating Organizations, highlights the following GEOSS Data Sharing Principles: There will be full and open exchange of data, metadata, and products shared within GEOSS, recognizing relevant international instruments and national policies and legislation. All shared data, metadata, and products will be made available with minimum time delay and at minimum cost. All shared data, metadata, and products being free of charge or no more than cost of reproduction will be encouraged for research and education. Programme: Part One: Implementing the GEOSS Data Sharing Principles How We Got There and Where We're Going . Beth Greenaway. UK Environmental Observation Network An Overview of the Key Substantive Provisions ...

The UK Research Information Network (RIN) and the British Library (BL) have produced an amazing report looking at the patterns of flow of data in its production and tranformation in the research process of life scientists. Patterns of information use and exchange: case studies of researchers in the life sciences . A report by the Research Information Network and the British Library November 2009. They have seven case studies that look at the data lifecycles of data for researchers in the following life science disciplines: Animal genetics and animal diseases Transgenesis in the chick and development of the chick embryo Epidemiology of zoonotic diseases Neuroscience Systems biology Regenerative medicine They have extended Chuck Humphrey 's data lifecycle model , and use this extended model to illustrate how the data lifecycles are expressed in these different disciplines: The diagrams (below) for the different disciplines are very revealing, and show the great deal...

I recently discovered the (at least partial) root of some of the excellent activity in the area of research data management in the UK: the UK government's Science & innovation investment framework 2004-2014 . Of particular interest: 2.23 The growing UK research base must have ready and efficient access to information of all kinds – such as experimental data sets, journals, theses, conference proceedings and patents. This is the life blood of research and innovation [emphasis added] . Much of this type of information is now, and increasingly, in digital form. This is excellent for rapid access but presents a number of potential risks and challenges. For example, the digital information from the last 15 years is in various formats (versions of software and storage media) that are already obsolete or risk being so in the future. Digital information is also often transient in nature, especially when published formally or informally on websites; unless it is collected and archived...

ICSTI2009 "Managing Data for Science" Conference From the site: ICSTI's 2009 Public conference will take place on June 9 and 10, 2009 at Library and Archives Canada, 395 Wellington Street, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Speakers from Canada, the United States and Europe will address: How eScience affects the way libraries, publishers and scientists relate to each other. How the era of "big data" will enable enhanced experimentation and collaboration in science. The program includes presentations from: Francine Berman San Diego Super-Computing Center, California Richard Boulderstone Director of e-Strategy and Programmes British Library, UK Jan Brase German National Library of Science and Technology, EU Lee Dirks Microsoft, State of Washington Peter Fox Rensselaer Polytechnic University, State of New York Paula Hurtubise Project Manager Carleton University, Ottawa Liz Lyon UKOLN University of Bath, UK James Mullins Purdue...

The Quebec health research fund ( Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec (FRSQ) ) has mandated all full or partially funded projects to publish their research outputs ("peer reviewed publications") to an open access site not less than 6 months after publication. This policy went into effect January 1 2009. While this is excellent news, it would have been even better news if the policy took a broader view of research outputs and included research data in its open access policy, mandating research data management and release, similar to the policies of CIHR , Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) , NIH , Genome Canada , UK Research Councils , the Australian government , the European Research Council (ERC) and others. The benefits of sharing research data - especially health data - are well documented .

The latest Nature -- Vol 455(7209), 4 September 2008 -- is a special issue on " Big Data ". Articles (& editorial) include: Editorial (2008). Community cleverness required Nature, 455 (7209), 1-1 DOI: 10.1038/455001a David Goldston (2008). Big data: Data wrangling Nature, 455 (7209), 15-15 DOI: 10.1038/455015a Cory Doctorow (2008). Big data: Welcome to the petacentre Nature, 455 (7209), 16-21 DOI: 10.1038/455016a Mitch Waldrop (2008). Big data: Wikiomics Nature, 455 (7209), 22-25 DOI: 10.1038/455022a Clifford Lynch (2008). Big data: How do your data grow? Nature, 455 (7209), 28-29 DOI: 10.1038/455028a Sue Nelson (2008). Big data: The Harvard computers Nature, 455 (7209), 36-37 DOI: 10.1038/455036a Doug Howe, Maria Costanzo, Petra Fey, Takashi Gojobori, Linda Hannick, Winston Hide, David P. Hill, Renate Kania, Mary Schaeffer, Susan St Pierre, Simon Twigger, Owen White, Seung Yon Rhee (2008). Big data: The future of biocuration Nature, 455 (7209), 47-50 DOI: 10.103...

In the September issue of PLOS Medicine , Piwowar et al. [1] examine the benefits and offer recommendations to encourage data sharing at academic health centers (AHC): Commit to sharing research data as openly as possible, given privacy constraints. Streamline IRB (Institutional Review Board), technology transfer, and information technology policies and procedures accordingly. Recognize data sharing contributions in hiring and promotion decisions, perhaps as a bonus to a publication's impact factor. Use concrete metrics when available. Educate trainees and current investigators on responsible data sharing and reuse practices through class work, mentorship, and professional development. Promote a framework for deciding upon appropriate data sharing mechanisms. Encourage data sharing practices as part of publication policies. Lobby for explicit and enforceable policies in journal and conference instructions, to both authors and peer reviewers. Encourage data sharing plans as part o...

One of the implications of research data archiving is that there will likely be large datasets on a variety of subjects. How third parties will analyse these data in a scalable fashion has not entirely been addressed. But the recent conference examines some of the issues for a class of data, images and signals : Advances in Mass Data Analysis of Images and Signals in Medicine, Biotechnology, Chemistry and Food Industry (Third International Conference, MDA 2008 Leipzig, Germany, July 14, 2008) and includes: Burcu Yılmaz, Mehmet Göktürk, Natalie Shvets (2008). User Assisted Substructure Extraction in Molecular Data Mining. Advances in Mass Data Analysis of Images and Signals in Medicine, Biotechnology, Chemistry and Food Industry, 5108 , 12-26 DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-70715-8_4 Franco Chiarugi, Sara Colantonio, Dimitra Emmanouilidou, Davide Moroni, Ovidio Salvetti (2008). Biomedical Signal and Image Processing for Decision Support in Heart Failure. Advances in Mass Data Analysis of Imag...