Data Ownership – another quandary to consider…
So we started the data ownership thread with The “Elephant in the Room” post. We started with a fairly clean example but there was definitely room for interpretation – enough for an elephant some may say…. Let’s try another situation and see what everyone’s thoughts are.
Many of us rely on the wonderful internet to find data sources – let’s not discuss what’s happening south of our border – that’s another conversation for another day. So, internet for data – BUT, what about the library? What about those wonderful items we call books? How about reports? Historical reports? Historical census? There is a hidden treasure trove – yes my favourite saying these days – of data – if you take the time to browse the library for reports or other sources of data.
Let’s use an example. Hmm… you just discovered that there are published reports from the 1940s and 1950s on books read and associated ratings by book club members from your town library. WOW!!! How cool!!! These reports show tables of book titles, randomized ID for book club members (no names or any personal identifiers), and a rating for each book read by each book club member. Wouldn’t it be cool to create a database with this information so people could search this and use it for maybe research or an essay? You think this would be a great project, so you take it on and create a database with the data contained in these reports. Can you see where I’m going with this???
So.. The library created the report in the 1940s and 1950s – stands to reason they “own” that representation of the data? BUT – you have now created a new representation of the data – it’s old stuff – who cares who owns it???? Nope! We care!!! So – who owns the data in this situation?? Like my earlier post – we can mull this over and over and talk it through and come up with different answers almost every day!!!
This is why – we need to discuss who has the rights to access the data? Who can use it? I know everyone wants to talk about ownership – but let’s talk about ethical use of the information – and create data use agreements rather than spin on the Who Owns the Data question?
Well… I’ll stop here for today and come back to this in a couple of weeks. For now – think about who “owns” the data or rather WHO can determine who can access this new representation of the historical book review data?
Thoughts or comments – let me know by sending an email
