4.8 Data Archiving Policies

Much of the focus in open access has been on published research articles or what is referred as 'scholarly communication'. However the data based on which such scholarly articles are written is also important. While many articles may have been made open access, the data behind them is often not. This leads to the question whether there can be open data in the same way as open access information resources. Funding organizations are also gradually demanding grantees to deposit their raw research data in suitable public archives or stores, in order to enable the authentication of outputs and further work and interpretations by other researchers. There several issues in achieving open data repositories and archives and many organizations are already making statements with regards to data. The Open Data Foundation [www.opendatafoundation.org] provides a platform for its members of different communities to work on standards and tools that will facilitate visibility and re-use of data. The stated aim of the foundation is to aide decision-making in many fields of research and policy making using open data sets.

Open data is the idea that certain data should be freely available to everyone to use and republish as they wish, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "Open" movements such as open source, open hardware, open content, and open access. The philosophy behind open data has been long established, but the term "open data" itself is recent, gaining popularity with the rise of the Internet and World Wide Web and, especially, with the launch of open-data government initiatives such as Data.gov and Data.gov.uk.( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_data).

Data.gov is a U.S. government website launched in late May 2009. According to its website, "The purpose of Data.gov is to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government." The site seeks to become "a repository for all the information the government collects". The site would publish to the public any data that is not private or restricted for national security reasons.( http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com..).

Data.gov.uk is a UK Government project to make available non-personal UK government data as open data. It was launched January 2010. As of January 2013 it contained over 9,000 data sets. All data is non-personal and provided in a format that allows it to be reused. data.gov.uk intends to increase the use of Linked Data standards, to allow people to provide data to data.gov.uk in a way that allows for flexible and easy reuse.

Data.gov.in (Data Portal of India) is a platform for single-point access to datasets and apps published by Ministries/Departments/Organizations of the Government of India. It combines and expands the best features of India’s “India.gov.in” and the U.S. government's Data.gov project.

Last modified: Tuesday, 13 April 2021, 12:20 PM