The journal article continues to be the key mechanism for communicating research findings, but in an online context, where space is not an issue, it becomes possible to publish the raw data on which those findings were based. At the RIN workshop, research funders and practitioners discussed current initiatives and how best to exploit opportunities for making more raw data available online....Centre, data is increasingly important as evidence. "Experimental verifiability is the basis of science, and if the journal article is the only evidence we have it is less verifiable than if we also have the raw data"....
One of the key challenges is to persuade researchers to deposit data systematically, something that Juan Bicarregui, e-Science department, CCLRC, pointed out "will require a huge cultural change; education will be key". In a sentiment echoed by a number of speakers, David Shotton argued that "we need to create tools to make it easy for researchers to create metadata as part of their workflow. Even then, it will still require effort, so we must make it clearly advantageous for researchers to do so". Peter Dukes, Research Management Group, Medical Research Council, spoke of the "absence of a grassroots movement for data sharing" and researchers' concerns about possible loss of control over their data and the implications for their reputation.
In discussion, it became clear that while there are common challenges and opportunities across the scholarly community, there are also differences in how the question can be addressed across the different disciplines....
Another goal cited by Bicarregui and others was that the future e-infrastructure should support the use for research purposes of data collected for other purposes....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/11/2006 08:07:00 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.
