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)
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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?
• [email protected]• http://andrew.treloar.net/
• http://arrow.edu.au/• http://archer.edu.au/• http://ands.org.au/
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