[open-science] Openness and Licensing of (Open) Data

Tue Feb 10 20:25:01 UTC 2009

On 10-Feb-09, at 9:34 AM, Dorothea Salo wrote:

> Possibly-ignorant questions about share-alike:
>
> I am a social science researcher. I do a human-subjects study,
> properly anonymize the dataset, and publish it under a share-alike
> license.
>
> My colleague at another institution then protests that she can't use
> the dataset because she will be combining her own human-subjects work
> with it, and her IRB insists that such datasets as hers not be
> published at all, even anonymized, owing to questions of privacy.
>
> Is this a plausible scenario? If so, is it what we want?

It might be what we want.  This gives the researcher incentive to  
investigate whether her data can indeed be anonymized and protect  
privacy, and if so, to convince her IRB to change the policy.

Another question for this scenario:  if the first researcher is  
making data freely available and other researchers are using it and  
not sharing theirs, is this is disincentive for researchers to openly  
share their data?  In my opinion, it is.  At the very least, it is a  
good reason to delay sharing your data until after you publish, or  
someone makes you.  Otherwise, a second researcher - with access to  
your data, with no effort, plus more than you have - could easily  
publish before you.

In the ideal world ~ which I think we should be aiming for ~ there  
will be much more cooperation and less competition, even in science,  
so this might not matter at all.  In today's environment, though,  
this scenario could mean the researcher who freely shares (but not  
sharealike) is at a disadvantage when it comes to competing for jobs,  
research grants, and awards.

Any opinion expressed in this e-mail is that of the author alone, and  
does not represent the opinion or policy of BC Electronic Library  
Network or Simon Fraser University Library.

Heather Morrison, MLIS
The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com

>
> Dorothea
>
> -- 
> Dorothea Salo                dsalo at library.wisc.edu
> Digital Repository Librarian      AIM: mindsatuw
> University of Wisconsin
> Rm 218, Memorial Library
> (608) 262-5493
>
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