From Data to Data: One Version of a History of Scholarly Communication

PRDLA 2008 Closing Keynote

Dr Andrew Treloar – andrew.treloar.net

Australian National Data Service – ands.org.au

Adjunct Librarian, Monash University

Data led to early writing

http://www.utexas.edu/features/archive/2003/vase.html

But early preservation technologies were a bit problematic…

http://www.earth-history.com/_images/ms2340.jpg

Time passes…

Doomed data

In the vill in which St. Peter’s Church is situated [Westminster] the abbot of the same place holds 13½ hides. There is land for 11 ploughs. To the demesne belongs 9 hides and 1 virgate, and there are 4 ploughs. The villeins have 6 ploughs, and there could be 1 plough more. There are 9 villeins each on 1 virgate and 1 villein on 1 hide, and 9 villeins on each half a virgate and 1 cottar on 5 acres, and 41 cottars who pay 40 shillings a year for their gardens. [There is] Meadow for 11 ploughs, pasture for the livestock of the vill, woodland for 100 pigs, and 25 houses of the abbot’s knights and other men who pay 8 shillings a year. In all it is worth £10; when received, the same; TRE £12. This manor belonged and belongs to the demesne of St. Peter’s Church… Westminster.

http://www.learningcurve.gov.uk/focuson/domesday/take-a-closer-look/

More time passes…

Scholarly communication for the last 350 years

(a data-centric view, that is)

“A Correct Tide-Table, Shewing the True Times of the High-Waters at London-Bridge, to Every Day in the Year 1683. By Mr. Flamstead”Philosophical Transactions, Vol. 13, (1683), pp. 10-15

“An Observation of the Beginning of the Lunar Eclipse which Hapned Aug. 19. 1681. in the Morning, Made on the Island of St. Lawrence or Madagascar, by Mr. Tho. Heathcot, and Communicated by Mr. Flamstead”Philosophical Transactions, Vol. 13, (1683), p. 15

Eclipse tables

Data problems in published literature

Inconvenient data

DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2005.1569

Imprisoned data

DOI 10.1098/rsta.2006.1793

Invisible data

DOI 10.1098/rsta.2006.1793

Inaccessible data

Missing negative data

• Need title capture for negative results

“Selective Publication of Antidepressant Trials and Its Influence on Apparent Efficacy”

Turner, Erick, Matthews, Annette, Linardatos, Eftihia, Tell, Robert, Rosenthal, Robert.

New England Journal of Medicine. 358(3):252-260, January 17, 2008.

From the Abstract:“Evidence-based medicine is valuable to the extent that the evidence base is complete and unbiased. Selective publication of clinical trials - and the outcomes within those trials - can lead to unrealistic estimates of drug effectiveness and alter the apparent risk-benefit ratio”

Why is data now so important?

• We are in an era of increasing data-intensive research

• Almost all data is now born digital• Increasing amount of data generated

(semi-)automatically• “Consequently, increasing effort and

therefore funding will necessarily be diverted to data and data management over time”– Towards the Australian Data Commons, p. 4

(http://www.pfc.org.au/bin/view/Main/Data)

19

Need for standardisation

• Software and silicon-based hardware keep getting cheaper, carbon-based wetware keeps getting more expensive

• Fixing data management problems is enormously labour intensive and costly

• “Consequently, standardisation within forms of data and simplification in the frameworks around retention, storage, access and use of data, and the elimination of differences whose resolution requires labour, must be made, if the on-going keeping and reuse of data is to remain affordable”– Towards the Australian Data Commons, p. 5

20

Role of data federations

• With more data online, more can be done• Possible now to answer questions unrelated

to reasons why data was collected originally• Increasing focus on cross-disciplinary science• “Consequently greater clarity is needed over

control and access to community-funded data, and the means of aggregating, federating and accessing such data are increasingly important”– Towards the Australian Data Commons, p. 5

21

22

Changing Data, Changing Research

• New scientific instruments– Large Hadron Collider at CERN: 1.5 GB/sec– Square Kilometre Array telescope: 1 EB/day!

• Exabyte = a thousand million gigabytes (1018 bytes)

• New scientific Models– The mapping of the Human Genome: A billion DNA

letters in a human sequence– Global climate models: ever finer time/space resolution

• New knowledge from unlocked data– Hubble data has to be shared six months after collection– Majority of published research from Hubble telescope

data was not “first use”

Data desiderata

• Easy deposit for researchers• Greater (preferably open) access for

all• Easier (or any!) citability• Easier discoverability, particularly

outside generating discipline• More context for those outside the

generating discipline

A partial solution:data in institutional repositories

ARROW

ARROW

ARROW Discovery Service

ARROW Discovery Service

Another partial solution:researcher workflow integration

Repository domains

Treloar, A. and Harboe-Ree, C. (2008). "Data management and the curation continuum: how the Monash experience is informing repository relationships". Proceedings of VALA 2008, Melbourne, February. http://www.valaconf.org.au/vala2008/papers2008/111_Treloar_Final.pdf

31

ARCHER’s Data-centric Model

FederationIdP

Private/SharedResearch Repository

Web Access

Content ManagementSystem

Automated InstrumentData Deposition

Service Provider

Desktop Access

IdP

IdP

IdP

Shib Protected

PKIAnalysis Workflow

Automation

32

ARCHER portal screenshot

Another partial solution:discipline self-organisation

TARDIS overview

TARDIS partners

A national solution:ANDS

Australian National Data Service

• Funded by Australian Government at A$21M from mid-2008 through mid-2011

• Goal: to deliver greater access to Australia’s research data assets in forms that support easier and more effective data use and reuse

• Approach: building the Australian Research Data Commons

ARDC diagram

ANDS Delivery Structure

• ANDS has been structured as four inter-related and co-ordinated service delivery programs:– Developing Frameworks (policy, planning)– Providing Utilities (discovery, persistent ID)– Seeding the Commons (more data, better

managed)– Building Capabilities (researcher and support)

• Plus candidate service development activities funded through a discipline-driven process

40

41

Conclusion

• Data is becoming steadily more important for research

• Research results need to be communicated

• Data is the next great challenge for scholarly communication

• And so, it should be the next great challenge for libraries

• Over to you!

Questions?

• andrew.treloar@its.monash.edu.au• http://andrew.treloar.net/

• http://arrow.edu.au/• http://archer.edu.au/• http://ands.org.au/