Research data and data ownership – the continuing saga
I left off my last blog post with a question – well, actually a few questions: WHO owns this data? The supervisor – who is the PI on the research project you’ve been hired onto? OR you as the data collector and analyser? Hmmm…… When you think about these questions – the next question becomes WHO is responsible for the data and what happens to it?
As you already know there really are NO clear answers to these questions. My recommendation is that the supervisor, PI, lab manager, sets out a Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) guide for data collection. Yes, I know this really does NOT address the data ownership question – but it does address my last question: WHO is responsible for the data and what happens to it? And let’s face it – isn’t that just another elephant in the room? Who is responsible for making the research data FAIR?
Oh my, have I just jumped into another rabbit hole?
We have been talking about FAIR data, building tools, and making them accessible to our research community and beyond – BUT? are we missing the bigger vision here? I talk to researchers and most agree that they want to make their data FAIR and share it beyond their lab – BUT…. let’s be honest – that’s a lot of work! Who is going to do it? Here, at ADC, our goal is to work with our research community to help them make agri-food data (and beyond) FAIR – and we’ve been creating tools, creating training materials, and now we are on the precipice of changing the research data culture – well I thought we were – and now I’m left wondering – who is RESPONSIBLE for setting out these procedures in a research project? WHO should be the TRUE force behind changing the data culture and encouraging FAIR research data?
Don’t worry – for anyone reading this – we are VERY set and determined to changing the research data culture by continuing to make the transition to FAIR data – easy and straightforward. It’s just an interesting question and one I would love for you all to consider – WHO is RESPONSIBLE for the data collected in a research project?
Till the next post – let’s consider Copyright and data – oh yes! Let’s tackle that hurdle 🙂
