Adam Kriesberg

Looting hoards of gold and poaching spotted owls: data confidentiality among archaeologists & zoologists

Researchers in the social and health sciences are used to dealing with confidential data, and repositories in these areas have developed mechanisms to prevent unethical or illegal disclosure of this data. However, other scientific communities also collect data whose disclosure may cause harm to communities, cultures, or the environment. This paper presents results from 62 interviews and observations with archaeologists and zoologists. It focuses on how researchers’ perceptions of potential harm influence attitudes about data confidentiality, and how these, in turn, influence opinions about who should be responsible for managing access to data. This is particularly problematic in archaeology when harm is not to a living individual but is targeted at a community or culture that may or may not have living representatives, and in zoology when an environment or a species may be at risk. We find that while both archaeologists and zoologists view location information as highly important and valuable in facilitating use and reuse of data, they also acknowledge that location should at times be considered confidential information since it can be used to facilitate the destruction of cultural property through looting or decimation of endangered species through poaching. While researchers in both disciplines understand the potential dangers of allowing disclosure of this information, they disagree about who should take responsibility for access decisions and conditions.

A comparative study of data reuse among quantitative social scientists and archaeologists

This paper presents preliminary findings from a comparative study of data reuse in the quantitative social science and archaeology disciplines. Quantitative social scientists have been engaged in large-scale data sharing and reuse from centralized repositories for over 50 years. In contrast, archaeologists are transitioning from sharing and reusing data on a small-scale with colleagues and museums to large scale sharing and reuse via centralized repositories. In this study, we consider whether approaches to supporting data reuse in quantitative social science can be applied to the archaeological community. Currently we are examining data reuse practices in both disciplines via three points of comparison and will discuss preliminary findings regarding: 1) the nature of context needed during reuse, 2) the use of a bibliography of data related literature, and 3) the role of intermediaries.

Tweets may be archived: Civic engagement, digital preservation and obama white house social media data

As part of his presidential transition, the administration of Barack Obama included social media data among the materials transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). In addition, this social media collection comprising data from Twitter, Facebook and Vine was distributed to organizations and researchers to explore and investigate. In this paper, we present our initial observations on the first social media presidency through the lens of its data, extracted from their native platforms. While the data speak to the engagement cultivated by the administration in its use of social media, the collection contains as many questions as it does answers. The completeness, metadata and accessibility of these materials remain unclear, potentially limiting the use of the collections in research and beyond. The paper analyzes platform‐specific issues and offers potential solutions to address the preservation and access challenges to social media data. We conclude with implications for the digital preservation community and social media researchers to consider when approaching social media data collections.

Library-Mediated Collaborations: Data Curation at the National Agricultural Library

Abstract:To effectively support research activities and data stewardship, library and information professionals engage in collaborative projects that involve diverse disciplinary and institutional partnerships. While this idea is stressed in existing literature, the different ways in which librarians and domain experts working in library and information organizations engage in collaboration is rarely made explicit. This paper proposes the term library-mediated collaborations to capture the ways in which library and information professionals perform actions that facilitate, coordinate, and even create opportunities for multiple stakeholders to leverage their resources and expertise in data curation. By mediation, the paper refers to the active and critical involvement of institutional actors, in this case information professionals in a national library, in ensuring the creation and execution of a project over a period of time. The paper discusses the various manifestations of library-mediated collaborations in four data cu-ration projects currently taking place at the National Agricultural Library (NAL). A national library located within the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), NAL has long supported the preservation of and access to agricultural information. The paper concludes by identifying important questions that information professionals may consider asking when they participate in collaborative data curation projects.

Looting hoards of gold and poaching spotted owls: Data confidentiality among archaeologists & zoologists: Looting Hoards of Gold and Poaching Spotted Owls: Data Confidentiality Among Archaeologists & Zoologists

Researchers in the social and health sciences are used to dealing with confidential data, and repositories in these areas have developed mechanisms to prevent unethical or illegal disclosure of this data. However, other scientific communities also collect data whose disclosure may cause harm to communities, cultures, or the environment. This paper presents results from 62 interviews and observations with archaeologists and zoologists. It focuses on how researchers’ perceptions of potential harm influence attitudes about data confidentiality, and how these, in turn, influence opinions about who should be responsible for managing access to data. This is particularly problematic in archaeology when harm is not to a living individual but is targeted at a community or culture that may or may not have living representatives, and in zoology when an environment or a species may be at risk. We find that while both archaeologists and zoologists view location information as highly important and valuable in facilitating use and reuse of data, they also acknowledge that location should at times be considered confidential information since it can be used to facilitate the destruction of cultural property through looting or decimation of endangered species through poaching. While researchers in both disciplines understand the potential dangers of allowing disclosure of this information, they disagree about who should take responsibility for access decisions and conditions.

Challenge Paper: Challenges to Sharing Data and Models for Life Cycle Assessment

Life Cycle Assessment is a modeling approach to assess the environmental aspects and potential environmental impacts (e.g., use of resources and the environmental consequences of releases) throughout a product’s life cycle from raw material acquisition through production, use, end-oflife treatment, recycling and final disposal (i.e., cradle-to-grave) (ISO 14040). It has been employed in recent years by industry and governments to address growing interest about the true costs of resource use, environmental impact, and other externalities of economic activity. Inherently multidisciplinary, LCA draws and synthesizes information from the social and physical sciences. This breadth within LCA models (often referred to as “data” by the community of practitioners) can make collecting and synthesizing information the most expensive component of an analysis and drives the need for model reuse. However, the LCA community is faced with a major challenge in its capacity to produce sufficient documentation and metadata to determine representation of these models and to reuse them correctly, an issue broadly affecting researchers across disciplines. Tenopir et al. (2011, 2015) found in each of two surveys of scientific data management and sharing practices that researchers do not feel equipped to generate metadata to facilitate reuse of their data. Furthermore, some researchers reported limited knowledge of available standards to describe data. The challenge in capacity in the LCA community is driven by two factors: the nascent state of standardization in LCA modeling and the strong focus on research and results for funded LCA work. Standardization serves to create a foundational set of rules and guidelines to support

Data from "An Analysis of Federal Policy on Public Access to Scientific Research Data"

This work sponsored by the USDA National Agricultural Library through a Cooperative Agreement.

Public-private partnerships and the future of digital access in US state archives

This project examines the network of public cultural institutions and private sector organizations engaged in the work of digitizing historical records. Recent technological advances, coupled with a changing financial climate for libraries and archives in the public sector, have resulted in a new generation of partnerships focused on the digitization of materials traditionally held in public institutions. Through a mixed-methods social science approach, this project seeks to understand how these partnerships form, how they are negotiated, managed, and how they end. It further examines how digitization through partnerships affects public access to records. This study is currently in progress; its results will provide a unique look into an emergent set of relationships and a public information access environment in transition.