CODATA, The Committee on Data for Science and Technology

World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
Past, Present and Future of Research in the Information Society
13-15 November 2005, Corinthia Khamsa Hotel, Tunis

Abstract:

Global Commons of Geographic Data: Research and Development Challenges

Professor Harlan J. Onsrud
University of Maine, U.S.
onsrud@spatial.maine.edu

Most scientific data efforts focus on collection and maintenance of data "by scientists for scientists." Yet across the globe individuals and organizations are gathering detailed local level data that could be of immense value to social, physical and biological scientists that is for all practical purposes hidden from their view. This locally collected detailed data is typically unobservable through sensors and is being accumulated through on-the-ground direct observations or interpretation. By example, the diameter and use of a buried pipe, the types of plant life in a meadow, the use of a building, and the types and amounts of pollutants taken up by animal life are not efficiently determinable through remote sensors. In other instances, phenomena are being observed by ground level mobile and stationary sensors for many other purposes than science and, while some of this data might be valuable for science, scientists do not typically have access to it. Across the globe individuals and organizations are gathering data and creating work products referenced to location that they are unable to efficiently or effectively share with others. This presentation focuses on incentives for sharing and on technological and legal mechanisms to support incentives for sharing. It outlines a conceptual model and the accompanying research challenges for providing easy legal and technological mechanisms by which any creator might affirmatively and permanently mark and make accessible a location-referenced dataset such that the world knows where the dataset came from and that the data is available for use without the law assuming that the user must first acquire permission. We agree that immense challenges continue to exist in communicating and sharing scientific and technical data across and among scientific guilds. Yet greatly enhancing the ability of the individual scientist and lay observer to efficiently share their observations and works with the world may go a long way in enhancing communications across science and exposing the interconnectedness of all of our actions.