[open-science] Fwd: Information Commissioner forces UEA to release data

[Jonathan Gray]

Thought this might be of interest!


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Joy Davidson <Joy.Davidson at glasgow.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, Jul 6, 2011 at 11:29 AM
Subject: Information Commissioner forces UEA to release data
To: RESEARCH-DATAMAN at jiscmail.ac.uk


This news item from Research Fortnight and accompanying decision note
from the Information Commissioner's Office may be of interest to list
members.

Information Commissioner forces UEA to release data
Elizabeth Gibney

The Information Commissioner's Office has ordered the University of
East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit to disclose its CRUTEM dataset to
Oxford academic, Jonathan Jones.

Jones, a physicist at the university, used the Freedom of Information
Act to request access to the CRU archive of world temperature data,
recorded jointly with the Met Office.

The centre became embroiled a controversy known as "Climategate" in
2009, following the leaking of emails sent by the centre's academics
in November of that year.

In the ruling, made on 23 June and released on 28 June, the
commissioner Christopher Graham, gave the university one month to
deliver the data.

The UEA turned down Jones' original request in 2009, arguing that
exemptions applied because some of the data may have value as
intellectual property and others were already in the public domain.

ICO decision notice
http://www.ico.gov.uk/~/media/documents/decisionnotices/2011/fer_0280033.ashx

Joy Davidson
DCC Associate Director
Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII)
George Service House, 11 University Gardens,
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8QJ
Scotland
Tel: +44(0)141 330 8592
Fax: +44(0)141 330 3788
http://www.dcc.ac.uk



-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://blog.okfn.org

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