Davis, Mark A

Hobbie, Sarah E

Knops, Jean M H

Lehman, Clarence L

Naeem, Shahid

Reich, Peter B

Ritchie, Mark E

Tilman, David

Wedin, David A

University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy

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Miranda M. Hart,* Richard J.
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Public Access and Use
of Electronically
Archived Data: Ethical
Gonsiderations
Ecologists today are increasingly
expected to electronically archive
their data sets and make them pub-
licly accessible. For example, NSF
now requires that LTER sites have
major dala sets documented and
available on-line within a reasonable
time of collection. This is generally
interpreted as 3-5 years, a lag de-
signed to allow those who collected
data a reasonable period in which to
publish results. The expectation that
data will be archived and shared may
well spread to all NSF-sponsored re-
search. Indeed, NSF's Grant General
Conditions state that NSF "expects
investigators to share with other re-
searchers, at no more than incremen-
tal cost and within a reasonable time,
the data, samples, physicai collections
and other supporting materials cre-
ated or gathered in the course of the
work."
Although some ecologists have
made their data available following
publication, making data available be-
fore they are published, or possibly
even before they are analyzed, makes
many ecologists uneasy and raises
some ethicai issuss. Although fears
ofbeing scoopcd or contradicted by
one's own data nay be unwarranted,
such fears could promote hiding or
poor documentation of data, or hasty
and premature publication, therefore
undermining progre ss in the fie1d. In
addition, unpublished data, particu-
larly unanalyzed data" often contain
data entry and other errors, errors that
are usually discovered during analy-
sis by those who collected them. Pub-
lic access to such data could result in
erroneous conclusions by others if
those who collected the data were
not consulted.
We believe that rnaking more data
accessible to more ecologists has the
potential for greatly increasing com-
munication, collaboration, and synthe-
sis within the ecological community.
However, for the latter to occur, it is
imperative that the ecological com-
munity develop, and individual mem-
bers abide by, a set of ethical guide-
lines that promotes data sharing, col-
laboration, and scientific advances,
while at the same time acknowledg-
ing and respecting those individuals
whose time, energy, and intellectual
efforts produced the data. Currently,
no ethical code of conduct exists
within the ecological community gov-
erning the access and use ofarchived
data. Thus, we strongly encourage
ESA to develop such a code, by
which all members of the ecological
community would be expected to
abide. Ideally such a code would be
developed collaboratively with the
ecological societies of other cour-
tries, since the ecological community
is global, and electronically archived
data can be accessed from anywhere
in the world.
Currently, ESA has a general
code of ethics <http://esa. sdsc.edu/
codeofethics.htm>. This code lists
several principles ofconduct that are
relevant to the issues we have raised
concerning the electronic archiving of
data. These include:
. Researchers will not submit for
publication any lranuscript containing
data they are not authorized to use.
90 Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America
. ESA assumes that the principal
investigator(s) of a research project
retain the right to control use of re-
sulting unpublished data, unless oth-
erwise specified by contract or ex-
plicit agreement.
We beiieve ESA needs to clarify
whether these principles are also in-
tended to apply to the use of elec-
tronically archived data. Specifically,
we believe that ESA needs to ad-
dress the issue of electronically
archived data in its code of ethics
and/or develop a code specifically
addressing this topic. In order to en-
courage the development of such a
code (whether a supplement to the
current code of ethics or a separate
code), we offer the following work-
ing draft that ESA could use as a
starting point for such an effort.
A Proposed Code of Ethics for
Access and Utilization of
Archived Data
Science is a community enter-
prise that prospers most when there
is open dissemination of ideas and
data. Thus, The Ecological Society
of America supports the archiving
and public accessibility of ecologi-
cal data and urges all ecologists to
make their data accessible in this
way. It is expected that raw and
summary data will be made available
promptly following any publication
of the data. In addition, all summary
and raw data, published or not, nor-
mally should be made publicly ac-
cessible no more than 5 years follow-
ing their collection or determination.
Should further delay be necessary,
reasons for this delay must be pub-
licly provided, along with an expecta-
tion of the release date. It is ex-
pected that those who gathered the
data will document the archived data
sets sufficiently to permit their use
and interpretation by others. Further-
more, all individuals who access and
use data gathered by others are ethi-
cally obliged to respect and ac-
knowledge the time, energy, and in-
tellectual effort expended by those
who produced the data. Any indi-
vidual who analyzes or presents
archived data, or any portion of the
data, in any form or fashion, is re-
quired to have contacted those who
produced the data and to have thor-
oughly discussed with them issues
of data qualrty. intetpretation. ac-
knowledgment, recognition, and au-
thorship before any dissemination of
ideas. results. or conclusions based
on the data occurs.
If such a code of conduct were to
exist, then individuals and research
teams archiving data sets could post
a copy of the code to their archive
web site reminding users of their
ethical obligations. Authors of manu-
scripts submitted to ESA journals, and
authors of posters or oral presenta-
tions at ESA-sponsored events, could
be required to indicate whether any
archived data sets other than those
of the author(s) were used in the pa-
pers or presentations. If so, the au-
thors could be required to provide
the names of those individuals whose
data sets were used and to indicate
how they had resolved issues of data
interpretation, acknowledgment, rec-
ognition, and authorship. This could
be accomplished via a standardized
form provided all authors by the edi-
tors or ESA. Should questions re-
main, editors and meeting organizers
could then contact the individual(s)
whose archived data sets were being
used to obtain additional information
and perspective. Although ESA could
require such information only for its
own journals and meetings, it would
be expected that ESA members would
abide by the ethical code of conduct
no matter where or in what form any
dissemination of ideas, results, or con-
clusions based on another's archived
data occurs.
We believe that such a code of
ethics would provide the assurances
that both data gatherers and data us-
ers need to make data sharing a win
win situation. By providing leader-
ship in developing and implementing
such a code, ESA could help the
ecological community adapt to, and
benefit from, the newly emerging
culture ofopen data sharing.
MarkA. Davis
Department oJ Biology
Macalester College
Saint Paul, MN 55105
E-mail : davis @macales ter. edu
David Tilman, Sarah E. Hobbie, and
Clarence L. Lehman
D ep artment of E c o I o g1,,
Evoltdiott, and Behavior
Un iv e rs ity of Minn e s o ta
Saint Paul, MN 55108
Peter B. Reich
Department of Forest Resources
Un iv er s ity of Minn e s o t a
Saint Paul, MN 5 5108
Jean M. H, Knops
School oJ' Bio logical Sc iences
University of Nebraska
Lincoln, NE 68588
Shahid Naeem
Department of Zoology
Univ er s ity of LI/as h i ngt on
Seattle, WA 98195
Mark E. Ritchie
Ecology Center and
Department of Fisheries and l4rildlife
Utah State University
Logan, UT 84322
David A. Wedin
School of Natural Resource Sciences
University of Nebraska
Lincoln, NE 68583
Managed Ecosystems
Deserve Greater
Attention
The current debate regarding the
relationships between declining bio-
diversity and ecosystem processes as
they relate to aspects of the Earth's
support system has garnered much
recent attention throughout the scien-
tifrc community and in the general
media (Naeem et al. 1999, Huston et
al. 2000, Kaiser 2000). Inconsistent
results from a variety of experiments
Januar.f 2001 9l


Public Access and Use of Electronically Archived Data: Ethical Considerations

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Public Access and Use of Electronically Archived Data: Ethical Considerations

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