🚀 go-pugleaf

   P Graham: PROTECTING THE INTEGRITY OF ELECTRONICALLY ARCHIVED DATA
 M Gelobter: PUBLIC DATA-ARCHIVING: A FAIR RETURN ON PUBLICLY FUNDED RESEARCH
EM Jennings: ENDORSEMENT OF FTP INTERNET ARCHIVING OF DATA

	      Three commentaries on:
	      Skoyles, John R. (1992)  Ftp internet data archiving:
	      A cousin for PSYCOLOQUY. PSYCOLOQUY 3(29) data-archive.1

	      ABSTRACT OF SKOYLES'S ORIGINAL TARGET ARTICLE:
	      American Psychological Association (APA) journals do not
	      publish raw data, hence data are effectively
	      inaccessible. I propose that authors of research papers
	      should transfer their data to an Internet site so it can
	      be accessed over Internet by anonymous ftp. I suggest
	      that such data archiving would (1) make fraud easier to
	      detect, (2) encourage scientific criticism and (3) aid
	      the scientific process in general.  Nor should it be
	      difficult to implement.

              Retrievable from by anonymous ftp from
	      host: princeton.edu directory: pub/harnad
	      filename: psyc.92.3.29.data-archive.1.skoyles

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
psycoloquy.92.3.55.data-archive.2.graham     Friday, September 11 1992
ISSN 1055-0143                   (4 paragraphs, 1 reference, 48 lines)
PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA)
		Copyright 1992 Peter Graham

        PROTECTING THE INTEGRITY OF ELECTRONICALLY ARCHIVED DATA
		Commentary on Skoyles on Data-Archiving

                Peter Graham
                Computing Services
                Rutgers University
                GRAHAM@zodiac.rutgers.edu
                (908) 932-2741

0.0 KEYWORDS: Data archiving, data security, data integrity, electronic
retrieval, ftp, internet, fraud

1.1  John Skoyles's (1992) recent proposal that psychological raw data
be maintained on file servers as data archives is a good one and a
bellwether for future use and provision of data. I wish to comment only
on one aspect, that of data security. The question of maintaining the
integrity of the archived data is nontrivial. Very briefly: the data
must be protected against modification by accident or intent, whether
by its owner or by other users.

1.2  Owner: The potential for modification after the fact must be
eliminated so that the research community can have confidence in the
archiving process. The malleability of electronic data is such that
special precautions are needed that would not be necessary in an
environment where only print data was involved. It is not that we
expect data modification to take place; but confidence in the system
will require that users be assured that it cannot take place.

1.3  Others: Accidental modification or destruction is a familiar
possibility to all of us. Using the data files as primary source data
must not be allowed; only copies. Well organized backups will be
essential. Fraudulent modification must be protected against for
reasons similar to those given above.

1.4  What I want to emphasize is not so much that there are immediate
and complete solutions. There aren't (are we should proceed anyway):
But proposals of the kind Skoyles is making must from the beginning
take the security and integrity issues into account. If the research
record is to be maintained, we must, as we see more and more such
proposals, continue to ask that they give sufficient thought to
preserving the data intact and protecting it from modification.

REFERENCES

Skoyles, John R. (1992) Ftp internet data archiving: A cousin for PSYCOLOQUY
PSYCOLOQUY 3(29) data-archive.1

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
psycoloquy.92.3.55.data-archive.3.gelobter   Friday, September 11 1992
ISSN 1055-0143                   (5 paragraphs, 1 reference, 64 lines)
PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA)
		Copyright 1992 Michel Gelobter

        PUBLIC DATA-ARCHIVING: A FAIR RETURN ON PUBLICLY FUNDED RESEARCH
		Commentary on Skoyles on Data-Archiving

                Michel Gelobter
                School of International and Public Affairs
                Columbia University
                New York, NY  10021
                mg78@cunixf.columbia.edu or
                gelobter@garnet.berkeley.edu

0.0 KEYWORDS: data archiving, deception, electronic retrieval, error
detection, ftp, fraud, meta-analysis, statistics, public domain, public
property, federal funding.

1.1  Skoyles's (1992) idea is excellent. I have often considered it
myself, albeit for different reasons (outlined below). Some form of the
process Skoyles recommends should be adopted almost universally,
throughout the research world. (As Hypertext and Multimedia computers
become a reality, qualitative research disciplines could adopt similar
procedures. The Humanities already distribute CDs with every possible
version of classical texts and commentaries cross-indexed.)

1.2  Having worked for United States Congressman John Dingell myself, I
know that a primary concern has been that data, often gathered at the
expense of the public through public research funding, can be:

   (a) fraudulently gathered and analyzed (representing, when not
   detected, an unaccountable waste of our money), and

   (b) used by private parties for great profit in developing patented
   rights to drugs, and now, genetic material.

1.3  The former concern is mostly addressed by Skoyles's proposal, but
he fails to take on the latter thorny issue of data ownership
directly. The Federal Government could adopt guidelines for the status
of data aquired through direct or indirect government subsidy. These
guidelines could be as legally binding as the requirements imposed on
institutions receiving federal library assistance. They would specify
the format and availability of all data gathered at taxpayer expense.

1.4  This proposal would revolutionize the research "business" by
putting cutting edge results in the public domain, for public use. The
problem is that it might remove that wonderful private sector incentive
for research that we academicians so deny as motivation for our work:
greed.

1.5  I believe that the research our taxes pay for should not be used
to line the pockets of private entrepreneurs. The profit from
developing and using publicly funded research can still be guaranteed
through licensing, but the monopoly "rent" (to use economic
terminology) derived from the control of data and results must be
returned to the public domain. Skoyles's proposal goes a long way
towards doing this.

REFERENCES

Skoyles, John R. (1992) Public Electronic Archiving and Retrieval of Raw
Scientific Data. PSYCOLOQUY 3(29) data-archive.1

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
psycoloquy.92.3.56.data-archive.4.jennings   Friday, September 11 1992
ISSN 1055-0143                   (5 paragraphs, 1 reference, 55 lines)
PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA)
		Copyright 1992 Edward M Jennings

                ENDORSEMENT OF FTP INTERNET ARCHIVING OF DATA
		Commentary on Skoyles on Data-Archiving

                Edward M. Jennings
                Editor, EJournal
                Department of English,
                University at Albany, SUNY
                Albany, NY 12222
                EJournal@Albany.bitnet
                EMJ69@ALBNYVMS.BitNet

1.1  I endorse the archiving of raw data proposed by John R. Skoyles
(1992).

1.2  I don't read specialized journals in scientific fields. My
discipline(s) concentrate on drawing conclusions about written texts,
not on interpreting samples or measurements or controlled processes.
Perhaps it is because our texts are universally available that I used to
assume that the material scientists interpret was also widely
accessible.

1.3  I was surprised to learn how naive I was. It happened at a
conference of embryonic electronic journals. One proposal was for an
extremely rigorously refereed electronic journal in a clinical field. I
don't recall the exact question, but the reply was something like, "Of
course we won't transmit the raw data." Pressed, the publisher (or
another participant) pointed out to the naifs in the room that
clinicians spend years amassing data and don't want to hand their
life's work to someone else who could then "just do an analysis" and
get publication credit without doing all the work. The explanation
helped me understand those motives for secrecy, but I was still
disappointed.

1.4  It seemed to me then, as it does now, that the better scientists
would not want to keep their data secret. Secrecy smacks of patents, of
profits, of trying to own ideas. I have always imagined that "real"
science involved sharing what one had learned or couldn't figure out. I
still believe that one vector in the "origin" of modern science was the
novel ability to share the (comparable) data one had gathered.

1.5  So I am delighted to hear Skoyles's proposal for data archiving. I
hope that it can be implemented, that it will be greeted warmly, and
that people who don't want their data archived will find it
increasingly difficult to get their interpretations published.

REFERENCES

Skoyles, John R. (1992) Public Electronic Archiving and Retrieval of Raw
Scientific Data. PSYCOLOQUY 3(29) data-archive.1

--------------------------------------------------------------------------