[Esip-preserve] AGU Position statement on data preservation and a townhall meeting - and IPY Guidelines

[Mark A. Parsons]

Very good points, Bruce. Regarding point 1, I would argue that that  
issue largely exists for traditional publication citations, too, but  
can largely be addressed with appropriate existing conventions, e.g.  
DOIs. Point 2 is tricker. Unique, permanent identifiers would help  
here as well, but I suspect a greater issue is for the community to  
develop consistent practices on versioning.

Without getting into too much technical detail, these could be worthy  
topics for discussion. Perhaps, I could introduce the IPY model as a  
readily implementable but imperfect approach to prompt discussion.

Cheers,

-m.
On 13 Aug 2009, at 6:14 AM, Alice Barkstrom wrote:

> I took a look at the IPY citation guidelines.  On the plus side,
> the suggested citation syntax is close enough to what authors
> are used to that this increases the probability of adoption.
> That, in itself, is probably a strong enough argument to recommend
> adoption of these guidelines.
>
> Having said that, there are a couple of concerns:
>
> 1.  Could we take a citation in this form and feed it to an IT
> interface that would give us back exactly the data that has
> been cited?  I'll note that the form of the citation is not in
> XML or point to a recognizable URL.  This means that we'd
> need some translation software.  Likewise, we need to check
> that the fields (like "author" and "data set" and "version")
> are actually items in the real metadata design of our
> archives.
>
> 2.  Is the citation specific enough to identify not only
> the correct "version" of a collection, but also the subset
> of a full "version" that was used?  The concern here is
> that a reference to a data set "version" may include a
> collection of hundreds of thousands of files, while the
> data used in the paper giving the citation might only work with
> a handful of the files.
>
> Having noted these concerns, I'll voice the opinion
> that the suggestion in the IPY guidelines is highly
> likely to improve the probability of adoption by the
> users - and that outweighs the two concerns I've
> mentioned.  Besides, these two concerns give those
> of us in the IT world something useful to work on.
>
> Bruce B.
>
> At 04:37 PM 8/12/2009, Mark A. Parsons wrote:
>> Hi ESIP preservationists,
>>
>> The AGU position statement on "The Importance of Long-term
>> Preservation and Accessibility of Geophysical Data" was approved by
>> the AGU Council last spring and is available at http://www.agu.org/outreach/science_policy/positions/geodata.shtml
>>
>> Note the last sentence in the fifth paragraph:
>> "The scientific community should recognize the professional value of
>> such [data production] activities by endorsing the concept of
>> publication of data, to be credited and cited like the products of  
>> any
>> other scientific activity, and encouraging peer-review of such
>> publications."
>>
>> Bernard Minster (copied), chair of the panel that wrote the new
>> position statement, likes the idea of a townhall meeting, and I
>> believe would be willing to coconvene with us. I'm happy to help too.
>>
>> The task now is to draft an abstract. I'm willing to take a first
>> crack, if y'all agree the topic. I suggest  something like "Research
>> publication and data referencing practices to ensure verifiable
>> science, sponsored by the AGU Data Panel and the ESIP Preservation  
>> and
>> Stewardship Cluster"
>>
>> Perhaps, Bernard could introduce the position statement. Rob or Ruth
>> could speak on ESIP approaches/best practices (including the work on
>> identifiers). I could then moderate a discussion.
>>
>> Let me know what y'all think?
>>
>> Finally, I note that the International Polar Year developed some data
>> citation guidelines that may be useful: http://ipydis.org/data/citations.html
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> -m.
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>