[Esip-preserve] Provenance of screenshots used in documents

[Bruce Barkstrom]

One place to look for information of this sort may be the Google pages that
crop up when you type in a search term.  For example if you type in
"rock core data" for a Google search, the seventh item in the list
of responses is "
Images for *rock core
data*<https://www.google.com/search?q=rock+core+data&client=ubuntu&hs=u5w&channel=fs&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=GSW_UY-4OZe54AOxq4A4&ved=0CF0QsAQ>
 - Report images<https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=rock+core+data&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#>

It's pretty clear that lots of school kids have turned to Google for help
with reports.

If you open up that page and point at the image, Google gives an
option to look at the page info.  That doesn't always help, but sometimes
it does provide a source and a link back to the original document from
which the image comes.

It isn't clear what you would do with the information about the computer
or monitor metadata.  The image appearance on the screen is affected
by a lot of things, including the ambient lighting and the color calibration
of the monitor.  That calibration is sometimes done, but most of us
probably aren't that careful about it.  Airplane LCD screens
that you can see if you look up the aisle often provide a good illustration
of the calibration variability from one screen to the next.  I don't know
if the monitor or computer would be helpful in looking for source data
either.

As a word of caution, images themselves may be under copyright or
trademarked.  That may be the most important reason to worry about
provenance.  I recall one instance where Google noted that Edward
Tuffte had requested that Google withdraw an article with illustrations
because Tuffte owned the copyright and was prepared to initiate legal
proceedings if they didn't withdraw access.

Whether or not a screenshot is "fair use" or not might be an interesting
legal issue.  It's also an interesting example of trying to deal with a
visual
search for data.  I expect it would be a rather unusual citation.

Bruce B.


On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 9:27 AM, Justin Goldstein <jgoldstein at usgcrp.gov>wrote:

> Colleagues,
>   Does anyone have suggestions regarding the tracking or provenance of
> screenshots of websites included in documents and reports?  Very often, due
> to the limited quantity of information that can be captured in any one
> screenshot, the determination of the actual datasets visualized in the
> screenshots is not straightforward.  Neither information regarding the date
> the screenshot was taken, nor the version of the data sources, many of
> which are continuously updated under the same dataset name, are available.
>  Additionally, is it good practice to capture information about the
> computer/monitor used in the screenshot, in the same fashion that we
> capture the name/date of photographers for photos?  I can see many
> parallels between photos and screenshots vis-a-vis tracking provenance and
> data sources.  Very often such data are not easily available as well; is it
> worthwhile to pursue obtaining such information?
>
> Thanks,
> -Justin Goldstein
>
> --
> _________________________________
> Justin Goldstein
> GCIS Staff Assistant III
> US Global Change Research Program
> jgoldstein at usgcrp.gov
>
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> Washington, DC 20006
>
> http://www.globalchange.gov
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