Open Data, Scholarly Communication and Practical Uses

The growing presence and utilization of open data increases the importance of shared data nomenclatures and high-quality data access infrastructures.

A Blog Post by Pablo Markin.

On Оctober 27, 2018, Dorota Grygoruk has published an article entitled “Open Data in Scientific Communication” in the Open Access journal Folia Forestalia Polonica. In her review of scholarly literature, Grygoruk has concentrated on the issue of “sharing scientific data, including raw data” (192), given that “data specificity requires the development of an appropriate legal, technical and organizational model, followed by the implementation of data management policies at both the institutional and national levels” (192).

As this researcher argues, “[o]pen access to data increases the transparency of the research processes as well as promotes scientific cooperation and the implementation of interdisciplinary scientific research. The development of some scientific disciplines (e.g., bioinformatics) is based on access to data, while other fields (e.g. astronomy, physics, climatology) are strongly associated with collecting and sharing data at a global level” (194).

This article points out that the European Commission (EC) “recommends the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) Principles for research data stewardship” (194). As Grygoruk highlights, “regardless of the methodology used, the long-term protection of scientific data including raw data at an institutional level has numerous advantages” (195). This author further indicates that, as the volumes of data generated by scientific research have grown in recent years, “in many fields of science, the demand for technical infrastructure with high capacity, durability and performance has also increased” (196).

Similarly, in their paper on “Open data work: understanding open data usage from a practice lens” published on May 14, 2018 in the International Review of Administrative Sciences, Erna Ruijer, Stephan Grimmelikhuijsen, Jochem van den Berg and Albert Meijer have concentrated on the manner in which “civil servants’ and citizens’ initiatives collaborate to find solutions for public problems using an open data platform” (1), in their effort to demonstrate “how ongoing (digital) interactions over open data can result in shared understandings and meaningful practices” (2).

In their article, Ruijer, Grimmelikhuijsen, van den Berg and Meijer have adopted a “practice lens [that] posits users as constituting structures in their recurrent use of technology (Orlikowski, 2000)” (4). Their “empirical data were collected via action research […] in a rural province in the Netherlands” (6). According to this study, data users “constructed joint knowledge and solutions for a real-life issue” (12), while using an open data platform. This research has also indicated that “the absence of a shared cognitive framework for understanding [open data] […] and a lack of high-quality datasets could prevent processes of collaborative learning” (12).

By Pablo Markin

Featured Image Credits: Michigan Municipal League and Map 2018 Joint Convention in Grand Rapids – Day 1 Photos, Heartside-Downtown, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, May 30, 2011 | © Courtesy of Michigan Municipal League/mml.org/Flickr.