Cross-Cutting Themes

Proceedings
Table of Contents

Keynote Speakers

Invited Cross-Cutting Themes

CODATA 2015

Physical Science Data

Biological Science Data

Earth and Environmental Data

Behavioral and Social Science Data

Informatics and Technology

Data Science

Technical Demonstrations

Large Data Projects

Poster Sessions

Public Lectures

Program at a Glance

List of Participants
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Conference Sponsors

About the CODATA 2002 Conference

1. Preservation and Archiving of Scientific and Technical Data

As the volume and use of data collected worldwide continues to expand, the effective long-term preservation of these information resources likewise increases in importance. The preservation and archiving of digital scientific and technical databases in many cases poses greater, and significantly different, challenges than those in print formats. These challenges are not only technical, but involve new scientific, financial, organizational, management, legal, and policy considerations. Moreover, although many of the challenges that require sustainable solutions are the same for digital data across all disciplines, others are distinct or unique for certain disciplines or data types. Developing countries face even greater hurdles. Addressing the many different problems in the preservation and archiving of research data successfully today will bear dividends for many generations to come; the costs of failure, though incalculable, would be profound.

2. Interoperability and Data Integration

Interoperability and data integration have become essential functions not only in scientific and technical data management and information technology, but in a wide range of areas fundamental to research and the economy. With the growing number and volume of data sources, the high-speed connectivity of the Internet, the increasing number and complexity of integrable data sources and the increasing expectations of users, resolving interoperability and data integration challenges has become a research and industry focus. Incompatibilities between data formats, software systems, methodologies, standards and models of the world continue to reduce the important flow and creation of data, information, knowledge and intellectual property. Recent techniques, initiatives, and standards have rekindled activity and progress in interoperability and data integration. XML and related solution technologies have crossed traditional domain and sector boundaries, with the promise of relief from the data gridlock.

3. Emerging Tools and Techniques for Data Handling.

All facets of the scientific and technical community are moving from an information-based platform to one that is knowledge-based. This trend increases the pressure on our being able to make the transformation from data to information to knowledge as seamlessly and efficiently as possible. Simple searches of databases to find facts followed by manual efforts to make sense of those facts no longer suffice. New methods and tools to access, interpret, analyze, visualize and disseminate data, as well as the information and the knowledge ultimately derived from them, are needed. An improved understanding is needed about these major technology requirements, how they are being addressed, and how solutions are being implemented to provide reliable support to today's scientist and engineer.

4. Legal Issues in using and Sharing Scientific and Technical Data

The vast increases in the production of all types of digital databases and in their transfer and use for myriad purposes raises new legal concerns and amplifies others from the old print paradigm. Paramount among these is the trend toward greater legal protection of intellectual property rights in proprietary databases and the conflicts this poses with users of data, particularly those engaged in public-interest or non-profit research and education. Other legal issues that have significant effects on the production, access, and use of scientific and technical data include the protection of privacy of human subjects, export controls and national security restrictions on data exchange and dissemination, and questions of liability. As data activities continue to increase in importance, not just for research and education but in supporting economic and social development, the issues that arise at the interface of science and law in this context will become more important to study, understand and manage effectively. Scientists especially will need to communicate effectively about these issues with their national legislatures and with intergovernmental bodies such as the World Intellectual Property Organization.

5. Information Economics for Scientific and Technical Data

With the increasing emergence of information as a valued commodity in society, conflicts and complexities are arising in the previously assumed economic models for effective advancement of science. Scientists increasingly are viewed by commercial interests as primary markets for scientific and technical data where formerly they were viewed primarily as valued producers of such data. Governments, in their attempts to reduce research budgets, and university administrators, in their attempts to increase revenues, have increasingly encouraged scientists to license and restrict access to scientific and technical databases and services. In addition, the division between public and commercial interests is blurred by the need to draw data from multiple academic and commercial sources in order to advance knowledge in many science domains. Traditional public-good and public-interest approaches to research data activities and the established scientific mores of openness serving the advancement of science need to be explored in the context of evolving alternative information economic models.

6. Ethics in the Creation and use of Scientific and Technical Data

The gathering and compilation of scientific and technical data and the circumstances under which those data are used are at the core of many current moral debates about the role of science in society. Such debates include control over data and information about biological materials, world species diversity, genome information for plants, animals and humans, and medical records. Other discussions are focused primarily on technologies for handling scientific and technical data, ethics in cyberspace, and such topics as whether gaps in access to scientific and technical data among those in low income and high income countries will increase and what should be done about that. Even if parties desire to act responsibly in resolving conflicts, appropriate actions frequently are not clear for the individuals or groups involved, and such conflicts may not be resolvable by resort to existing law or scientific codes of conduct. In addition, access to and use of expansive scientific and technical data sets has spread well beyond academia to a much broader range of users in non-profit groups, myriad small and large businesses, and the general consumer public. Moral stances are provided from competing perspectives in all of these arenas. The ethicist questions the underlying principles and theories upon which the moralist stands and can help the scientific community evaluate which moral causes have merit and are worthy of support.