Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Big Data, Little Data, No Data: The Contested Landscape Of Data Sharing And Reuse, Christine L. Borgman

Christine L. Borgman

Scholars are being asked — by funding agencies and publishers alike — to release their data along with each publication, as though journal articles were merely containers of data. Data are amorphous and dynamic entities, best understood as evidence in support of an argument. The enthusiasm for “big data” obscures the complexity and diversity of data and of data practices across the disciplines. While open scholarship has been the norm for several centuries, open access to data is a profound shift in scholarly practice. This talk is based on a forthcoming book from MIT Press, “Big Data, Little Data, No …

Data Sharing: A Problem Of Supply Or Of Demand?, Christine L. Borgman

Christine L. Borgman

Knowledge sharing in science includes sharing research data. Research funding agencies have focused on increasing the supply of data by requiring data management plans and data sharing. Policy makers have paid surprisingly little attention to the demand for data. It stands to reason that if scholars actively sought data for reuse, then more data would be shared. The few studies that exist on the demand for extant data suggest that researchers rarely are asked for their data and rarely seek data from other investigators. Many investigators have difficulty imagining who might want their data or for what purposes they might …

Why You Should Care About Open Data: Open Access Week Thoughts On Why Research Data Rarely Are Reused, Christine L. Borgman

Christine L. Borgman

Scholarly knowledge-sharing includes sharing research data, but while the supply of data is growing rapidly, demand exists in only a few research communities. This appears to be caused by factors related to trust, application, and practices. When collecting one’s own data, a researcher knows its origins, transformations, analyses, assumptions, strengths, limitations, access conditions, and likely longevity, but researchers may not have that information about data acquired from other parties. Librarians, archivists, and data scientists assist scholars with managing, curating, and disseminating their data, recommending practices with reuse in mind whenever possible. This lecture is by Christine L. Borgman, professor and …

Why Are Scientific Data Rarely Reused? (Keynote), Christine L. Borgman

Christine L. Borgman

Knowledge sharing in science includes sharing research data. While the supply of scientific data is growing rapidly, demand exists in only a few research communities. The mismatch is not simply a matter of price point or of the efficiency of markets. Rather, it appears to be due to matters of trust, application, and practices. When collecting one’s own data, a researcher knows the origins, transformations, analyses, assumptions, strengths, and limitations of those data. Also known are the conditions of access to those data and their likely longevity. None of these factors may be known about data acquired from other parties. …

"Problems Of Attribution" Attribution: Managing Provenance, Ethics, And Metrics, Christine Borgman

Christine L. Borgman

While it seems that digitized scholarship should lead the way to better discoverability and attribution, the age-old problems still plague us: confusion about names, siloed data, lack of or difficult communication between organizations. This meeting, hosted jointly by Dryad and ORCID, provides a venue to discuss these issues and learn about the initiatives underway to to address them, including social aspects of attribution, the persistent identifiers for researchers and their work, and development of interoperable methods for storing and calling data.

"Problems of Attribution" Slides: Data attribution and citation; CODATA and developing data attribution and citation practices and standards; Driving …

Why Are The Attribution And Citation Of Scientific Data Important? In: Uhlir, Paul And Cohen, Daniel (Eds.). Report From Developing Data Attribution And Citation Practices And Standards: An International Symposium And Workshop., Christine L. Borgman

Christine L. Borgman

Keynote address from the Developing Data Attribution and Citation Practices and Standards: An International Symposium and Workshop in Berkeley, CA on 22 August 2011. Keynote speech is contained within the forthcoming 2012 Report from Developing Data Attribution and Citation Practices and Standards: An International Symposium and Workshop published by the National Academy of Sciences.

Preferred Citation: Borgman, C.L. (2012, forthcoming). Why are the attribution and citation of scientific data important? In: Uhlir, Paul and Cohen, Daniel (eds.). Report from Developing Data Attribution and Citation Practices and Standards: An International Symposium and Workshop. National Academy of Sciences’ Board on Research Data …