Re: STM Releases Related to EC Conference last week

["Greg Tananbaum" <gtananbaum@gmail.com>]

Joe is no doubt correct about the need for universities to think 
seriously and systematically about their stewardship of 
experimental data.  A moment of opportunity is approaching to 
engage in the critical planning that will increase access to the 
raw information from which many of society's most important 
scientific conclusions are being drawn.  This opportunity derives 
from a number of intertwining confluences:

- Governmental agencies and foundations are beginning to call for 
wider data transparency as a condition of funding.

- Departmental and lab servers are being overloaded by ad hoc 
attempts to store one-off datasets in an accessible manner.

- The lowering of storage and bandwidth costs is rendering 
wholesale data cataloguing possible.

- Despite the recent ALPSP and STM statements, a lingering 
suspicion exists that commercial publishers and information 
providers will soon express a proprietary interest in raw data, 
and may seek to monetize access to it.

At the present time, no real standards or protocols exist for the 
comprehensive uploading, storing, and accessing of experimental 
data.  A handful of university and government initiatives address 
specific disciplines and datasets, but from a narrow perspective. 
The Space Telescope Institute, for example, has announced a pilot 
project for astronomical data associated with electronic journals 
content.  JISC has funded the eBank UK project to improve access 
to crystallography data.  The University of California, San 
Diego, has begun to serve a number of scientific datasets 
generated by its researchers from a single web site. The 
University of Michigan provides a social science example with its 
Study of Income Dynamics Data Center.  There are a number of 
other cases along these lines, seeking to address a micro-level 
need.

>From a governmental perspective both the UK's Council for the 
Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC) and the US's 
National Science Foundation (NSF) have indicated that the 
preservation and presentation of experimental data are important 
goals for the near future.  NSF actually names the goal as part 
of its "cyberinfrastructure vision for the 21st century".  The 
CCLRC has had some success in creating an infrastructure for the 
storage of scientific data.  Its "Grid" platform is currently 
being tested by a handful of UK researchers.

It will be fascinating to watch this issue evolve.  Whoever 
"owns" this issue - be it the universities, the publishers, the 
government, or the technology companies - will be staking a flag 
in the undiscovered country of scholarly communication.

Best, Greg

Greg Tananbaum
gtananbaum@gmail.com
(510) 295-7504