[Esip-preserve] apropos yesterday's data publishing session

[Bruce Barkstrom]

There are at least two seriously different ways communities use data
citations.

At the conference at U. Penn. in April, one definition was that some members
of the communities such as social sciences and bioinformatics wanted
citations
as a kind of "guarantee of familiarity with the `literature'" in the
discipline.  In the
session where we discussed this, it didn't look like the proponents of this
definition
cared whether they made some other use of the citation.

In my case, I'm coming from the part of the Earth science community whose
data consists primarily of large files of numerical values.  In this
community,
data citations are needed to specify small subsets of data values that are
used
for checking uncertainties and validating them.  The citations are similar
to page
or paragraph references in the humanities.  Because the number and size of
the
data collections members of this part of the community are very large, it
might
be more appropriate to regard a citation as a service that would produce
subsets
or pointers to subsets, that users could extract for numerical work.

A classic case arises in collections of solar irradiance (or, informally,
solar constant)
values.  We have about 10,000 days of observations from space (~30 years)
with data coming from about a dozen or so missions.  The mission data
collections
cover about 5 to six years each with some overlap at the beginning and end
of
a mission.  A data citation that would pinpoint which data belong to an
overlap
period would be useful.

The additional point about "data publication" is that some communities
disseminate data without peer review in what we would recognize as a "formal
publication."  The standard example here is weather data.  We're all
familiar
with TV broadcasts that disclose current weather data.  Even back in 1900,
the previous day's observations of weather appeared in the morning newspaper
(which presumably counts as a publication).  A six month to one year wait
for
a "peer-reviewed weather forecast" cannot be a serious proposal for a
citation.

Bruce B.

On Wed, Jan 7, 2015 at 11:31 AM, Kerstin Lehnert via Esip-preserve <
esip-preserve at lists.esipfed.org> wrote:

> Hi Mark,
> Thanks for this. I understand the conflict, but what other term would you
> suggest for us to use when we explain data Publication (with the capital
> >P<) to investigators?
>
> Kerstin
>
>
> Dr. Kerstin Lehnert
>
> Director, Integrated Earth Data Applications
>
> Director, EarthChem
>
> President, IGSN e.V.
>
>
> Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
>
> Columbia University
>
> Palisades, NY, 10964
>
> (845) 365-8506
>
> http://www.iedadata.org
>
> *http://www.earthchem.org <http://www.earthchem.org>*
>
> *http://www.igsn.org <http://www.igsn.org>*
>
>
>
>
> From: "Parsons, Mark via Esip-preserve" <esip-preserve at lists.esipfed.org>
> Reply-To: "Parsons, Mark" <parsom3 at rpi.edu>
> Date: Wednesday, January 7, 2015 at 11:26 AM
> To: ESIP Preserve List <esip-preserve at lists.esipfed.org>
> Subject: [Esip-preserve] apropos yesterday's data publishing session
>
> Chris Borgman has a short piece out in which she states: "As argued in
> depth elsewhere, data are not publications [1]. The “data publication”
> metaphor, commonly used in promoting open access to data and encouraging
> data citation, similarly muddies the waters.”
>
> It’s also a nice, succinct explanation of the need for context.
>
>
> http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/en100/special/if-data-sharing-is-the-answer-what-is-the-question
>
> cheers,
>
> -m.
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