The backstage work of data sharing

Conference · Sun Nov 09 04:00:00 EST 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/2660398.2660406· OSTI ID:1185641

Kervin, Karina E. ^[1]; Cook, Robert B. ^[2]; Michener, William K. ^[3]

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1. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
2. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
3. Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States)

Conventional wisdom makes the suggestion that there are benefits to the creation of shared repositories of scientific data. Funding agencies require that the data from sponsored projects be shared publicly, but individual researchers often see little personal benefit to offset the work of creating easily sharable data. These conflicting forces have led to the emergence of a new role to support researchers: data managers. This paper identifies key differences between the socio-technical context of data managers and other "human infrastructure" roles articulated previously in Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) literature and summarizes the challenges that data managers face when accepting data for archival and reuse. Finally, while data managers' work is critical for advancing science and science policy, their work is often invisible and under-appreciated since it takes place behind the scenes.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1185641
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION
cyberinfrastructure
data managers