[okfn-discuss] why data and process in academic publishing matters

Sat Apr 20 16:51:28 UTC 2013

Thanks for sharing this link, William.  The Reinhart/Rogoff incident would
have been much larger news in the US last week had it not been for the
Boston Marathon bombing.

I think this is an extremely relevant issue for the open knowledge community
and thus worthy of our comments and possibly a blog post.  Here are my
thoughts:

	(1) Had the data set been made public at the time the study was
published, the error may have been discovered much sooner. To the extent
that the study resulted in suboptimal policies, the period during which
these wrong policies prevailed would have been shorter.
	(2) It is unfortunate that Reinhart and Rogoff have faced so much
criticism.  They could have ignored the graduate student's data request in
the first place. Further, they have contributed large portions of their data
set to the public domain.  
	(3) The negativity these researchers are experiencing could lead
others to be less willing to release their data.

It is a shame that the economics profession has become such a "gotcha"
enterprise. Because economics data is most often used to justify
predetermined ideological positions, there is insufficient interest in
sharing it and collaboratively cleaning it.  I hope that begins to change
with this incident, but I doubt that it will.

Marc Joffe
Public Sector Credit Solutions

-----Original Message-----
From: okfn-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org
[mailto:okfn-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of William Waites
Sent: Saturday, April 20, 2013 3:44 AM
To: okfn-discuss at lists.okfn.org
Subject: [okfn-discuss] why data and process in academic publishing matters

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22223190

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