Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Data sharing coming to China

Zi Xun, China plans massive data sharing project, SciDev.Net, July 24, 2006. Excerpt:
The Chinese Academy of Sciences is planning a large-scale computer project to make it easier for researchers at its 90 institutes to share their data....Over the next four years, data from the academy's institutes will be entered into hundreds of databases, and computing tools will be made available to help researchers analyse the data....

The e-Science project aims to tackle the problem of poor data sharing in the scientific community....[Nan Kai of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Computer Network Information Center] says that the e-Science platform will be freely accessible to scientists outside the academy, as well as the public.

Liu Mian, of the US-based University of Missouri, says that besides developing the infrastructure, the government should also stipulate that researchers must share their data by sending them to public databases such as the e-Science project.

Comment. This is a notable development that should greatly accelerate research in China. I support Liu Mian's suggestion that the government mandate deposit in the new OA system. If the Chinese combine the right policy with the right technology, it will maximize its return on the investment in its new and powerful infrastructure.