Data is the starting point for progress across all fields of research: it plays a central role in our ability to predict and counter natural disasters, understand human connections, and develop advances in computing technology.
The Internet was built by researchers to share data, but data sharing isn’t yet the norm in research. While new discoveries rely on access to data, research data remains largely fragmented—isolated across millions of individual computers, blocked by technical, legal, and financial restrictions.
Text Adapted from Setting the Default to Open, by SPARC Europe used under a CC-BY License.
Open Data: an Introduction
“Open data is data that can be freely used, re-used and redistributed by anyone – subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and sharealike.”
From the Open Data Handbook https://opendefinition.org/
The Open Data Handbook highlights these critical points:
- Availability and Access: The data must be available as a whole, at a reasonable reproduction cost (preferably by downloadable), and in a convenient and modifiable form.
- Reuse and Redistribution: The data must be provided under terms that permit reuse and redistribution, including the intermixing with other datasets.
- Universal Participation: Everyone must be able to use, reuse, and redistribute. There should be no discrimination against fields of endeavour or against persons or groups. For example, ‘non-commercial’ restrictions or restrictions of use for certain purposes (e.g., only in education) are not allowed.
As you can see in the definition above, open data is more than making data available. Open data ensures public access to data and should include sufficient details so that others know how that data can be reused or repurposed. By using the FAIR principles, described next, to manage your data at all research stages, you will help ensure your data is both future-proof and open.
The FAIR Principles
The FAIR principles (data that is findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) provide guidance for data management and stewardship.
The Value of Open Data
The following TedX talk by Kristin Briney, a Data Services Librarian at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, discusses some of the reasons open data can be so valuable in research and society.
“Rethinking Research Data” from TEDx Talks.
