Science, secrets and transparency .... again.

[icarus]

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/21/ ... ?art_pos=4

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/e ... 102743.ece

"In a landmark ruling, the UK's Information Commissioner's Office has decided that researchers at a university must make all their data available to the public. The decision follows from a three-year battle by mathematician Douglas J. Keenan, who wants the data to do his own analysis on it. The university researchers have had the data for many years, and have published several papers using the data, but had refused to make the data available. The data in this case pertains to global warming, but the decision is believed to apply to any field: scientists at universities, which are all public in the UK, can now not claim data from publicly-funded research as their private property."

[rcain]

very good news indeed. where we ought to have been all along.

[Giorgio]

It's research founded with public money, and so it is only logic that it must be made public. It was time that the judiciary system started to realize this obvious point.

It might chance completely the way that the research world makes research, thought I am not sure if in better or worst.

I am very curious to see where this ruling will bring us to I am especially curious to see if it will spread to other EU countries.

[TallDave]

It's just insane that these guys are doing global policy consulting with secret data.

[Brian H]

It's just insane that these guys are doing global policy consulting with secret data.

They kept it secret because it is so badly bruised from all the heavy-handed massaging it suffered.

[D Tibbets]

Public access to publically funded data is reasonable. But, because of the effort and commitment needed to generate that data by involved individuals, I can see a limited quarintine . Perhaps 6-months to a year of exclusive rights to the data before it is released to the public*. Of course once a paper is presented the data supporting their conclusions have to be presented along with the paper.
Convoluted concerns about national security, and propriatory methods need to be addressed, but the data itself should generally be in the public domain.

* I think that something similar is used with some space craft data. Hubble images perhaps?.
SOHO data released to the public has resulted in alot of comets discovered by amateurs that were not detected by the profesionals due to the focus and/or effort required.

http://www.plutotoday.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=9020


Dan Tibnbets

[Brian H]

AFAIK, the rules for publication in journals are that the quarantine lasts until, and only until, acceptance of the paper for publication. All data supporting the research, including adjustments, methods, algorithms, and rationale therefor are to be made available to all comers. The very essence of hypothesis challenge and validation.

That the research was publicly funded is an additional, but not necessary, reason for such release. In a sense, it's almost a red herring.