T78 Geoscience Data for Geoinformatics

Monday, 29 October 2007
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM

MY DATA. YOUR DATA. OUR DATA! - OVERCOMING CULTURAL BARRIERS TO OPEN DATA SHARING

Paper number: T78-1
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 8:00 AM – 8:15 AM

Authors

Abstract

Open access to data is fundamental to verifiable scientific progress. Advances in information technology now provide the technical capabilities to make data easily and openly available to global audiences, but a wide range of cultural, structural, and political hurdles still impede the development of a comprehensive, ubiquitous, and transparent data infrastructure that represents the foundation of a successful Geoinformatics system. Among these are missing ‘Best Practices' and policies for data publication or data submission to public archives (or missing enforcement thereof) and the conspicuous lack of incentives for data sharing for the individual researchers, who might even fear disadvantages in their career advancement if easy access to their data in digital data resources circumvents the original journal publication of the data and leaves them without being properly cited and receiving credit for their data.

Geoinformatics cannot function without an underlying structure that ensures that all relevant data is captured, documented, and accessible in proper digital format. Therefore, Geoinformatics efforts - especially those that build and operate digital data collections – need to engage their respective science communities in identifying and tackling cultural and structural problems for open data sharing and ensure that the design of their systems responds to community concerns.

This presentation will highlight ongoing and evolving efforts to overcome cultural barriers to open data sharing in geochemistry and the broader Geosciences both on a national and international scale. These efforts comprise design approaches for geochemical data systems, initiatives to establish community-wide best practices and policies for data publication engaging professional societies and editors and publishers of scientific journals, and the advancement of international agreement on the requirements and approaches to open global data exchange.