[open-science] Fall American Geophysical Union session on Making Research Data Legally Interoperable

Fri Jul 1 17:54:28 UTC 2016

Many of you on this list may not normally think about the American 
Geophysical Union as a place to present a paper, but if you happen to 
be working on a problem related to the legal interoperability of 
research data, please consider submitting to this session we are 
organizing at the fall AGU meeting in San Francisco! Cheers, Bob

PA029: Making Research Data Legally Interoperable: Challenges and Solutions

Scientists spend a lot of time creating, accessing, collecting, and 
integrating data for their research, but often face challenges when 
they get to the stage of making their data more openly available, as 
increasingly required by funding agencies and foundations. The most 
difficult challenges are related to legal issues of various kinds, 
that differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Such issues become 
critical in the emerging open data environment.

If you have been able to overcome challenges in addressing the legal 
interoperability of data in your area of science or in your 
institution or network, or if such challenges have had demonstrable 
impacts on your ability to advance science, please consider submitting 
an abstract about your experience to this Public Affairs session at 
the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (12-16 December 
2016, San Francisco CA). (Note: for those of you who normally submit a 
paper to the AGU in another track, a second abstract can be submitted 
to a PA session in addition to your primary abstract).

This AGU session will include presentation of the results of an 
international interest group of the Research Data Alliance that has 
been developing principles and guidelines on the legal 
interoperability of research data. We welcome specific examples of 
legal interoperability approaches developed in different scientific 
arenas. The session provides the opportunity to share and compare 
approaches and solutions developed by different disciplines, 
institutions, and jurisdictions.

For further information, see: 
https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm16/preliminaryview.cgi/Session13537 
Abstracts are due 3 August 2016. The session is co-organized with 
Earth and Space Science Informatics. We hope you will consider a 
submission to this session!

Cheers, Bob Chen and Bernard Minster

PA029: Making Research Data Legally Interoperable: Challenges and Solutions

Session ID#: 13537
Session Description:

Scientists spend considerable time collecting, integrating, and 
analyzing research data, but when the time comes to share data, they 
face questions about legal interoperability such as who controls data 
rights, what data licenses are appropriate, and what attribution is 
needed for data authors and sources. Unfortunately, the principles, 
laws, and practices applicable to data vary greatly, leading to 
significant complexity and uncertainty, and the tendency to protect 
and control intellectual property. Given increased recognition of the 
value of open data sharing for science and society, scientists need to 
work actively with their institutions to promote legal 
interoperability of data to the extent possible. This session reports 
on new principles and guidelines on the legal interoperability of 
research data developed by a group of legal and data management 
experts. Specific cases where legal interoperability approaches have 
helped advance science or where lack of interoperability has impacted 
research progress are invited.

*****
Dr. Robert S. Chen
Director, Center for International Earth Science Information Network
  (CIESIN), The Earth Institute, Columbia University
Manager, NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC)
P.O. Box 1000, 61 Route 9W, Palisades, NY 10964 USA
tel. +1 845-365-8952; fax +1 845-365-8922
e-mail: bchen at ciesin.columbia.edu
CIESIN web site: http://www.ciesin.columbia.edu
SEDAC web site: http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu