[School-of-data] Tagline for School of Data

[Peter Murray-Rust]

[Not a tagline]
Several posters have suggested data are tabular. This is only one
construction of the human mind. Data can be:
* maps
* photographs
* recordings (audio/video)
* molecules
* biologocal sequences
* material embedded in narrative
* phylogenetic trees
* transactions
* networks
* flowcharts

and much more.

This post isn't a trivial post. In open-science we don't argue for
"text-mining" because that implies that everything else is out of scope and
protectable by vested interests. I use the phrase "content-mining" . The
phrase "text-and-data-mining" (TDM)  would also be very limited if "data"is
published rows and columns. This definition would gift photographs to
content "owners" .

It may be useful to create a general definition of data that makes it clear
that any and all of the above are "data". Many of the above are "facts" and
much data is made of facts. A photo of a histological slice is a fact is
data. That a recording of an experimental subject is data. We are aware of
sensitivities in the re-use of some data but that should not be because
someone owns the copyright but because community practice has been created.

Although not this tagline we should assert:
"a (micrograph|formula|network|sequence|tree|...) is a fact is data"

Tagline are important. I am glad to see "the right to read is the right to
mine" becoming used. We need taglines to protect the openness of data.

P.


-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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