The management and preservation of research data moved centre stage at the [Society of College, National and University Libraries] conference in Edinburgh today. The annual gathering of senior librarians heard from a number of speakers about the information needs of the research community and in particular the role of libraries in managing the increasing amounts of research data being created. ...
[JISC Executive Secretary Malcolm Read said] that there was a growing recognition that a journal article divorced from the data on which it was based was ‘incomplete’; the quality of research is improved when linked to data’, he said, which was why the question of research data and institutional repositories was such an important one and why it impacted on the quality and reputation of UK research.
But there are, he suggested, a number of questions to be dealt with: ‘Who owns the data; how do you select what is worth proving; which resources should be open access, how much will it cost, and so on’. ...
Another key issue is that of interoperability, he said, in order to exploit the opportunities for inter-disciplinary research. So repositories needed to be built according to standards, and JISC is, he said, investing in such activities ...
[Jean Sykes, Librarian at the London School of Economics said] [t]here was a considerable demand for storage of research data ... and a 360% growth in anticipated data volumes over the next three years.
The UK Research Data Service, the result of a collaboration between ... more than 40 stakeholders, would attempt to help tackle this issue, she said. ...
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 6/15/2008 09:42:00 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.
