Integrity of content is a generic issue in curation and preservation,
but has not been extensively studied in relation to scientific data.
Data are now being seen as an important end product of
scholarship in themselves. In this paper, we will discuss data
integrity issues in relation to environmental and ecological data,
and the implications of these issues on the development of data
digital libraries. For users to trust and interpret the data in
scientific digital libraries, they must be able to assess the integrity
of those data. Criteria for data integrity vary by context, by
scientific problem, by individual, and a variety of other factors.
The goal of this research is to identify functional requirements for
digital libraries of scientific data, encompassing both technical
and social factors that can affect data integrity. Mechanisms to
ensure data integrity have to be present at each stage in the data
life cycle, from data collection to data preservation and curation.
The implications of our research on data integrity are multi-fold
for the iSchool research community, and we hope to promote
discussion of these issues
