Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Data, Data Use, And Scientific Inquiry: Two Case Studies Of Data Practices, Laura Wynholds, Jillian Wallis, Christine Borgman, Ashley Sands, Sharon Traweek

Christine L. Borgman

Data are proliferating far faster than they can be captured, managed, or stored. What types of data are most likely to be used and reused, by whom, and for what purposes? Answers to these questions will inform information policy and the design of digital libraries.

We report findings from semi-structured interviews and field observations to investigate characteristics of data use and reuse and how those characteristics vary within and between scientific communities. The two communities studied are researchers at the Center for Embedded Network Sensing (CENS) and users of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data. The data practices of …