Bits of Power Issues in Global Access to Scientific Data (1997) / Chapter Skim
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From page 1... ...
To help understand the impact of such changes and to learn what actions are needed to ensure full and open exchange of scientific datai worldwide among researchers in the natural sciences, the Committee on Issues in the Transborder Flow of Scientific Data undertook a study responding to the following charge: · Outline the needs for access to data in the major research areas of current scientific interest that fall within the scope of CODATA the physical, astronomical, geological, and biological sciences. · Characterize the legal, economic, policy, and technical factors and trends that have an influence whether favorable or negative on access to data by the scientific community.
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The scope of inquiry also is limited to data in the natural sciences, which is the principal subject-matter focus of CODATA.2 Because the sponsors of the study are U.S. federal government science agencies, the committee has emphasized those trends, issues, and barriers that have an impact on international access to data collected and used in publicly funded, basic research programs that is, scientific research conducted as a public good.
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The economic framework for a global information system and legal models for dealing with conflicting interests are increasingly influenced by stakeholders who have no long-term responsibilities for, or concern about, sustaining publicly funded scientific inquiry. Simultaneously, the government science agencies expected to assume long-term responsibilities for sustaining scientific inquiry are questioning their capacity to continue to invest at traditional levels in the creation, preservation, and dissemination of scientific data.
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Associated with advances in, and increasing reliance on, information tools and infrastructure are a number of problems that present barriers to access, including the growing congestion of the Internet and consequent constraints on scientific communication and research; the storage and distribution of data that are inadequately described or indexed for significant numbers of potential users; the rapid obsolescence of electronic information-processing tools and storage media; the vulnerability of electronic networks and data repositories to accidental or deliberate damage; and the growing competition for use of currently limited network resources. Another difficulty the current lack of adequate access to scientific data in developing countries nevertheless has the potential to improve quickly.
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These conflicting viewpoints pose challenging problems for science and the rest of society. Current discussions are seeking a balance between protecting publicly supported activities that advance the public welfare and strengthening individual rights to intellectual property.
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Economic Aspects of Scientific Data As the quantities and uses of scientific data have expanded, and as nations' discretionary budgets have become increasingly constrained, some governments have begun to privatize activities previously delivered by the public sector and have sold some products and services on a commercial basis including the generation and distribution of scientific data. This development has stimulated fears that scientific data may become priced beyond the means of the scientific communities, even in the more developed countries, despite the fact that the conduct of basic scientific research, like other government activities related to public health and safety, serves the public welfare and thus is appropriately supported by government funding.
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(There is no question here regarding the continued support by government of data generation; it is a part of the process of doing basic research that falls outside the charge of this study.) Largely because of the possibility of monopoly control and the potential threat to the principle of full and open availability of data, the government should not remove itself as a primary distributor of the scientific data that its funding has produced, without adequate safeguards as discussed below.3 The concern that privatization, accompanied by high prices and legal restrictions, would limit scientists' access to data needed for their work is paralleled by a similarly serious concern among economists about the possibilities for unrestricted monopolization, particularly by any party whose objectives do not include advancing the public interest.
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Intellectual Property Rights in Data: Legal Constraints on Full and Open Access? The emergence of a new intellectual property rights model that protects the contents of electronic databases as well as those in print has the potential to significantly affect the international flow of scientific data.
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If adopted in their current form, these legal proposals could jeopardize basic scientific research and education, eliminate competition in the markets for value-added products and services, and raise existing thresholds to entry into insuperable legal barriers to entry. If put into practice, such measures could restrict the full and open access to data on which scientists and educators have depended.
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, together with the scientific Specialized Agencies of the United Nations, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Megascience Forum, and the national science agencies and professional societies of member countries, should consider developing a distributed international network of data centers. Such a network should draw on the strengths of successful examples of international data exchange activities as described in Appendix C of this report, including, in particular, the ICSU World Data Centers, and become a prominent part of the global information infrastructure that has been proposed by the "Group of Seven" nations.
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5. As a corollary to recommendation 2.a above, publicly funded scientific databases should be maintained either directly or under subcontract by the government science agencies with the requisite discipline mission and need.
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e. Until affordable and ubiquitous electronic network services are available, national and international scientific societies and foreign aid agencies should establish or improve their existing efforts to send extra stocks of scientific publications to libraries and research institutions in developing countries that need them.
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4. A consortium of intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, including the International Telecommunications Union, the World Bank, the Specialized Agencies of the United Nations, the International Council of Scientific Unions, and other concerned bodies, should mount a global effort to reduce telecommunications tariffs to scientists in developing countries through differential pricing or direct subsidy.
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The price of scientific data to the contributing scientific community should be zero, or at most marginal cost. Recommendations Regarding Legal Developments Affecting Access to Data The new proposals supporting an overly protectionist property rights regime for the contents of databases and for on-line transmissions of data and other scientific information have reached an advanced stage of legislative consider
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The committee therefore recommends that the Office of Science and Technology Policy, leaders from the science agencies and professional societies, and all those concerned with sustaining the health of the scientific enterprise should immediately take the following actions: 1. Present to all relevant legislative forums the principle of full and open exchange of scientific data resulting from publicly funded research, and clarify the importance of sustaining such exchange to the nation's future whenever these forums consider laws that would apply to exchange of scientific data.
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Nevertheless there may be situations in which the scientific community would benefit if a body of data were distributed either by a competitive set of private firms or by a single adequately constrained private source.
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