Francine Berman and Henry Brady, Final Report: NSF SBE-CISE Workshop on Cyberinfrastructure and the Social Sciences, May 12, 2005. Excerpt: 'Privacy, data integrity, and accountability requirements must be addressed by researchers, custodians, and security personnel. For example, if public policy were to result from the analysis of federated data, free access to the public data portions might be mandated. At the same time, since the analysis might need to be reproduced in different legal contexts, the federated data would need to be protected and auditable....[M]any believe that the problem of finding ways to meet the legitimate privacy and confidentiality concerns of human subjects is the Achilles heel of the current data explosion. One overarching approach is to limit access to data, but this can severely restrict the possibilities for data analysis that can solve pressing human problems such as improving education, improving health care, or reducing crime....Methods for automated disclosure analysis that would allow a researcher to submit an analysis plan which would be automatically checked to ensure that disclosure risks are minimal might also be helpful, but these methods are still in their infancy. More work needs to be done in all these areas, but if we are to preserve the possibilities for socially useful data analysis from micro-data, we must also develop new approaches that utilize trust relationships and legal sanctions that enhance access instead of denying it....The goal should be to maximize access to data for researchers by creating mechanisms that rely upon trust, responsibility, and ultimately sanctions for bad behavior instead of simply restricting access to data.' (Thanks to Clifford Lynch.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/18/2005 10:26:00 AM.
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.
