Managing data for the long haul
Brendan Maher
Thursday, 28 August 2008 13:38 UTC
Collecting, storing and analyzing data is just part of the picture. Clifford Lynch writes here about Data re-use. the commentary is part of Nature’s 3 September ""Big Data" sepcial.":http://www.nature.com/news/specials/bigdata/index.html Re-use is valuable, but not if the data are degraded, damaged or lost. Lynch offers practical recommendations for preserving data for the long haul, a task that mandates planning for the inevitable handover of data to someone else. Lynch argues that few scientists and institutions have adequately addressed this issue. What do you think?
Updated 03 September 2008 19:27 UTC
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Replies
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I agree with Lynch. Outside of libraries and archives, I think few scientists and institutions have concerned themselves with the “how” of long-term stewardship of their digital data, other than continuous migration. NASA’s development of the Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS) is one exception. The work of Reagan Moore, et al., at the San Diego Supercomputer Center with Storage Resource Broker (SRB), and now, the i Rule Oriented Data System (iRODS), is another exception.
Some of the lack of planning has been due to the lack of technology available for the indefinite preservation and stewardship of digital material. Some of it has to do with culture. Generally, a researcher’s work is handed over at the end of his or her career, not during the course of his or her career. As well, most researchers don’t consider data curation and preservation a part of their core function — and they have a point. Hence, Lynch’s argument that data will be turned over to “someone else”.
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