Build it, but will they come? A geoscience cyberinfrastructure baseline analsys

Understanding the earth as a system requires integrating many forms of data from multiple fields. Builders and funders of the cyberinfrastructure designed to enable open data sharing in the geosciences risk a key failure mode: What if geoscientists do not use the cyberinfrastructure to share, discover and reuse data? In this study, we report a baseline assessment of engagement with the NSF EarthCube initiative, an open cyberinfrastructure effort for the geosciences. We find scientists perceive the need for cross-disciplinary engagement and engage where there is organizational or institutional support. However, we also find a possibly imbalanced involvement between cyber and geoscience communities at the outset, with the former showing more interest than the latter. This analysis highlights the importance of examining fields and disciplines as stakeholders to investments in the cyberinfrastructure supporting science

A Case Study of an Information Infrastructure Supporting Knowledge Work in Oil and Gas Exploration

It is well rehearsed in the fields of CSCW and IS that the relationship between the social and the material is bi-directional and shaped locally. But what happens when knowledge work is stretched across space and time, and the practice of today relies on actions and reflections done elsewhere and at different times? This paper presents an on-going case study of oil and gas exploration that takes steps to shed light on this emerging issue. I argue the relevance of framing the process of generating interpretations in oil and gas exploration in terms of information infrastructures. The case is representative for other cases where practitioners’ reflections cannot immediately be confirmed by empirical observation. Through a discussion on the concepts of coordination and accumulation across the dimensions of space and time, I outline how an able information infrastructure in this domain must balance the dualism of the concepts of naturalisation and historification

Preparedness for research data sharing: a study of university researchers in three European countries

Many government and funding bodies around the world have been advocating open access to research data, arguing that such open access can bring a significant degree of economic and social benefit. However, the question remains, do researchers themselves want to share their research data, and even if they do how far they are prepared to make this happen? In this paper we report on an international survey involving university researchers in three countries, viz. UK, France and Turkey. We found that researchers have a number of concerns for data sharing, and in general there is a lack of understanding of the requirements for making data publicly available and accessible. We note that significant training and advocacy will be required to make the vision of data sharing a realit

Build it, but will they come? A geoscience cyberinfrastructure baseline analysis

Understanding the earth as a system requires integrating many forms of data from multiple fields. Builders and funders of the cyberinfrastructure designed to enable open data sharing in the geosciences risk a key failure mode: What if geoscientists do not use the cyberinfrastructure to share, discover and reuse data? In this study, we report a baseline assessment of engagement with the NSF EarthCube initiative, an open cyberinfrastructure effort for the geosciences. We find scientists perceive the need for cross-disciplinary engagement and engage where there is organizational or institutional support. However, we also find a possibly imbalanced involvement between cyber and geoscience communities at the outset, with the former showing more interest than the latter. This analysis highlights the importance of examining fields and disciplines as stakeholders to investments in the cyberinfrastructure supporting science

If We Share Data, Will Anyone Use Them? Data Sharing and Reuse in the Long Tail of Science and Technology

Research on practices to share and reuse data will inform the design of infrastructure to support data collection, management, and discovery in the long tail of science and technology. These are research domains in which data tend to be local in character, minimally structured, and minimally documented. We report on a ten-year study of the Center for Embedded Network Sensing (CENS), a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center. We found that CENS researchers are willing to share their data, but few are asked to do so, and in only a few domain areas do their funders or journals require them to deposit data. Few repositories exist to accept data in CENS research areas.. Data sharing tends to occur only through interpersonal exchanges. CENS researchers obtain data from repositories, and occasionally from registries and individuals, to provide context, calibration, or other forms of background for their studies. Neither CENS researchers nor those who request access to CENS data appear to use external data for primary research questions or for replication of studies. CENS researchers are willing to share data if they receive credit and retain first rights to publish their results. Practices of releasing, sharing, and reusing of data in CENS reaffirm the gift culture of scholarship, in which goods are bartered between trusted colleagues rather than treated as commodities