[Esip-preserve] ESIP Citation Guidelines

alicebarkstrom at frontier.com alicebarkstrom at frontier.com
Mon Oct 11 17:03:33 EDT 2010


At least from my perspective (probably gloomily of
Scandanavian genetic predisposition), until we've
got a threat analysis that moves in the direction
of quantifying the probability of identifiers 
"coming loose" from the data itself, as well as
the probability of detecting changes, and some
approach to auditing for corruption, our job on
this is far from done.

I'll also note that I don't think we've done an
adequate job of taking into account the difficulties
of dealing with format and data order rearrangements.
I am quite certain that it is unfeasible to provide
a draconian standardization of data formats and data
file interpretations.  As a result, cryptographic
digests only protect against tampering with the
bits in a file - but they don't deal with the question
of being able to uniquely identify two files with
scientifically identical data that have different
cryptographic digests (or bit-by-bit intercomparisons).
This line of reasoning strongly suggests that the
notion of a "unique authentic version" of a file is
impossible.

Bruce B.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark A. Parsons" <parsonsm at nsidc.org>
To: esip-preserve at lists.esipfed.org
Sent: Monday, October 11, 2010 3:52:10 PM
Subject: [Esip-preserve] ESIP Citation Guidelines

Hi all,

We have been talking a lot about data citation over the last year. The broader data community has too (GEO, DataCite, CODATA, ...). It seems to me that it is incumbent upon ESIP to make some sort of statement on the issue. Our statement of principles to be presented at the annual meeting mentions "appropriate citation," and say that "Data intermediaries will work with data creators to develop clear citations." We should give more guidance on how to do this. Probably not as part of the principles, but as a separate evolving document.

My understanding is that there is general consensus that, for the moment, the IPY Guideline (http://ipydis.org/data/citations.html) are suitable for collections, especially extant collections, but more work needs to be done to more precisely identify specific granules, subsets, versions, etc. The Committee that developed and maintained the IPY Guidelines no longer exists, and the website where they reside will close soon. Would it be reasonable for ESIP to adopt, update, maintain, and promote these guidelines?Do you all think it's a good idea? Is there some official process for this?

Cheers,

-m. 
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