Scientists are producing data at an ever increasing rate (”the data deluge”) due to automated instruments, image capture and simulation tools. This holds the promise of “data-driven science” where scientific discovery can be made by linking or mining existing data. The reality is, unfortunately, that almost all this data is lost. Although some publishers welcome data as an adjunct to “fulltext”, many do not and most do not have the domain expertise to store and curate the data. And although “big science” (such as high energy physics, geospatial imaging, genomics and structural biology) can often provide domain repositories (e.g. in bioinformatics) most science (”the long tail”) cannot.
There is an urgent need to address this problem. Current Institutional Repositories (IRs) are geared to storing and disseminating scholarly manuscripts and while some are prepared to accept other digital artefacts the practice is fragmented and does not scale. We need to define “Data Repositories” (DRs) which serve the interests of the scientists directly. This is highly domain-dependent and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. ...
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 3/06/2008 02:27:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
