Open Access, Data Curation, and Information Science

Everyone agrees there are obstacles to realizing the benefits of open access. Many changes are required — in policies, education, scientific practices, curatorial practices, standards, tools, and infrastructure. But less attention is given to the need to support these changes with fundamental information science research. We must know much more than we do about the actual dynamics of scientific practices around data and data curation strategies. And formal theoretical work is needed as well: we are far from having a conceptual model of data representation, identity, and provenance that is adequate for interoperability. Research in these areas taking place at the Center for Informatics in Science and Scholarship (CIRSS) at GSLIS at UIUC, and elsewhere at other iSchools.

Preservation by Any Other Name Would NOT Smell as Sweet

As our community considers open access to data, it is essential that we rigorously define what we mean by terms such as storage, archiving, preservation and curation.  These terms are often used interchangeably even though they refer to different facets of data management.  The Data Conservancy has embraced a stack model of data management layers that highlights the differences of storage, archiving, preservation and curation.  This presentation will describe this stack model of data management layers with a goal of engaging the audience in a lively debate.