The Public Domain of Digital Research Data

IV. Preliminary results, upcoming activities

Between April 2001 and March 2002 the following activities were carried out:
(see Progress Report)

* Two quick elementary studies on the State of Affairs by Paul Wouters from the Netherlands Institute for Scientific Information Services (NIWI):

- a Quick Scan of the current relevant regulation on data sharing as formalised and practised by a selection of research organisations in the United States
- a 'Mini Survey' of the member organisations of ESF and similar organisations in Japan, Australia and Canada) to define the issues in data sharing currently felt as most urgent in the other OECD countries (see NIWI studies)

* The drafting by US participants Peter Arzberger, Geoffrey Bowker and Kathleen Casey (University of California, San Diego) of a proposal accepted by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) for a project combining scientific research and policy research into data-sharing. The project is meant to function as the organisational backbone of the Working Group. It will treat Access to and Sharing of Research Data from the viewpoint of science policy and data management as well as from a social informatics perspective. The Report shall be finalised in Spring 2003.

* The start of a study on the national legislation relevant to access to and sharing of research data proposed (by Hans Franken, professor of Law at Leiden University accepted by the Netherlands National Research Programme "Information Technology and the Law" (ITER) to be finalised in May of 2002.

* The start of two NIWI follow up studies:

- a study on the importance of Trust in the practice of smaal scale data sharing
- a study on data policies and management at the international 'Big Science' organisations CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research) and EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratory).

Studies to be finished by the end of 2002.

From March 2002 onwards the planning is as follows:

- An informational article was published in D-Lib Magazine, July/August 2002.

- An interim Report will be finalised in September 2002 to be presented at the 4th Global Research Village Conference, "Importance of ICT for Research and Science: Science Policies for Economies in Transition", to be held in Poland (10-11 October 2002).

- The interim Report, or parts of it, will be presented also at the 18th CODATA Conference to be held in Montreal between 29 September and 3 October 2002 .

- A progress report and the interim Report will be presented to the CSTP at its 79th meeting to be held in Paris at in October 2002.

- Various results of the activities of the Working Group will be presented at the Society for Social Studies of Science Conference in November 2002.

- The final version of the Report will be presented to CSTP at its 80th meeting in March 2003 in Paris.

Other activities are being planned. Once finalized, they will be reported on this page.