Data is data is data?

The membership of ICSU’s Strategic Coordinating Committee for Information and Data is limited to twelve representatives, which include two from Africa - Malika bel Hassen from Tunisia and Johan Pauw, Managing Director of SAEON (above). CODATA will hold its next assembly in Cape Town in October 2010. For South African policy makers, researchers and data managers, this will be a special opportunity to engage internationally on key topics for the advancement of science and its downstream effect on sustainable development.

This statement may indeed be true when everyone in the world has free and open access to quality scientific data, but perhaps not so when data is protected, hidden, forgotten, unreliable, poorly described or unrealistically priced.

Earlier this month the International Science Council (ICSU), with its focus on Environmental and Astronomical disciplines, launched a new three-year ad hoc committee known as the Strategic Coordinating Committee for Information and Data (SCCID).

This committee will provide ICSU with broad expertise and advice on strategic direction in the area of Scientific Data and Information. The initiative follows from several years of work and deliberation by ICSU. The 29th General Assembly of ICSU (Maputo, 2008) decided that SCCID will be a pragmatic alternative to a previously considered Scientific Data and Information Forum (Sci-DIF).

The broad terms of reference for SCCID include international leadership; coordination among ICSU activities; capacity development; advice on the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) and the newly established World Data System (WDS); as well as the development of a sustainability plan for ICSU’s leadership in the field.

The membership represents geographic and expertise diversity and is limited to 12 representatives, which include two from Africa - Malika bel Hassen (Tunisia) and myself. Ex officio members represent ICSU, CODATA and the WDS. More information is available here.

A primary principle of ICSU is that of the “Universality of Science”, which embodies the notion of equitable access to data, information and research materials. Already in 1997, the following Principles for Dissemination of Scientific Data were developed jointly by ICSU and CODATA :

1. Science is an investment in the public interest. Through research and education, scientists foster the creation and dissemination of knowledge. This can have profound effects on the well-being of people and the economies of the world. Science is a critical public investment in our future, a resource with extraordinary dividends.
2. Scientific advances rely on full and open access to data. Both science and the public are well served by a system of scholarly research and communication with minimal constraints on the availability of data for further analysis. The tradition of full and open access to data has led to breakthroughs in scientific understanding, as well as to later economic and public policy benefits. The idea that an individual or organisation can control access to, or claim ownership of the facts of nature is foreign to science.
3. A market model for access to data is unsuitable for research and education. Science is a cooperative, rather than a competitive enterprise. No individual, institution, or country can collect all the data it needs to address important scientific issues. Thus, practices that encourage data sharing are necessary to advance science and to achieve the resulting social benefits. Such data sharing is possible within tight research budgets only when data are affordable. If data are formally made available for scientific access, but the prices charged for such access are prohibitively high, the negative impact on science is the same as if access had been legally denied. This is especially the case for scientists in developing countries.
4. Publication of data is essential to scientific research and the dissemination of knowledge. The credibility of research results depends on the publication of data that back them up and permit reproduction of the results by colleagues. A restriction on data publication or a requirement that colleagues recompile a database from original sources compromises the ability of scientists to advance knowledge.
5. The interests of database owners must be balanced with society’s need for open exchange of ideas. Given the substantial investment in data collection and its importance to society, it is equally important that data are used to the maximum extent possible. Data that were collected for a variety of purposes may be useful to science. Legal foundations and societal attitudes should foster a balance between individual rights to data and the public good of shared data.
6. Legislators should take into account the impact intellectual property laws may have on research and education. The balance achieved in the current copyright laws, while imperfect, has allowed science to flourish. It has also supported a successful publishing industry. Any new legislation should strike a balance while continuing to ensure full and open access to data needed for scientific research and education.

More than 12 years later the international community is still struggling to find the balance between free and open access to scientific data and information and commercial interest. The SCCID is a continuation of the dialogue, and results from ICSU’s commitment to its three focus areas: International Research Collaboration, Science for Policy and Universality of Science.

CODATA will hold its next assembly in Cape Town in October 2010. For South African policy makers, researchers and data managers, this will be a special opportunity to engage internationally on key topics for the advancement of science and its downstream effect on sustainable development.