88+ Projects & Standards for Data Ownership, Identity, & A Federated Social WebApril 11, 2011
by Venessa Miemisvia
http://www.eclipse.org/higgins/As we become more comfortable with sharing ourselves on the ‘social web,’ we’re revealing a lot of valuable information about our interests, preferences and social connections, and it’s strewn across the web in many different 3rd party silos. One slice of me may be at home on Facebook, another segment of relationships and topics I follow are on Twitter, my online buying habits are known by Amazon and eBay, and a range of companies unknown to me are tracking the ‘digital exhaust’ I leave as I visit websites and travel around the web. There is a growing recognition of the value of all this data to assist us in decision-making, and a concern about who owns it currrently and what’s being done with it.
According to a recent W3C report, there are at least 4 main issues that arise when our data is trapped in 3rd party walled gardens:
more here:
http://emergentbydesign.com/2011/04/11/88-projects-standards-for-data-ownership-identity-a-federated-social-web/Responsible Conduct in Data ManagementData ownership refers to both the possession of and responsibility for information. Ownership implies power as well as control. The control of information includes not just the ability to access, create, modify, package, derive benefit from, sell or remove data, but also the right to assign these access privileges to others (Loshin, 2002).
Implicit in having control over access to data is the ability to share data with colleagues that promote advancement in a field of investigation (the notable exception to the unqualified sharing of data would be research involving human subjects). Scofield (1998) suggest replacing the term ‘ownership’ with ‘stewardship’, “because it implies a broader responsibility where the user must consider the consequences of making changes over ‘his’ data”.
According to Garner (1999), individuals having intellectual property have rights to control intangible objects that are products of human intellect. The range of these products encompasses the fields of art, industry, and science. Research data is recognized as a form of intellectual property and subject to protection by U.S. law.
Importance of data ownership:
According to Loshin (2002), data has intrinsic value as well as having added value as a byproduct of information processing, “at the core, the degree of ownership (and by corollary, the degree of responsibility) is driven by the value that each interested party derives from the use of that information”.
The general consensus of science emphasizes the principle of openness (Panel Sci. Responsib. Conduct Res. 1992). Thus, sharing data has a number of benefits to society in general and protecting the integrity of scientific data in particular. The Committee on National Statistics’ 1985 report on sharing data (Fienberg, Martin, Straf, 1985) noted that sharing data reinforces open scientific inquiry, encourages a diversity of analyses and conclusions, and permits:
1. reanalyses to verify or refute reported results
2. alternative analyses to refine results
3. analyses to check if the results are robust to varying assumption
The cost and benefits of data sharing should be viewed in ethical, institutional, legal, and professional dimensions. Researchers should clarify at the beginning of a project if data can or cannot be shared, under what circumstances, by and with whom, and for what purposes.
http://ori.dhhs.gov/education/products/n_illinois_u/datamanagement/dotopic.html