Data sharing and reuse in interdisciplinary scientific collaborations: Challenges of heterogeneous practice
Abstract
The Pufendorf IAS Symposium on Interdisciplinarity
Lund University, Sweden, May, 4, 2018 2:10PM-2:40PM
Drawing on 20 years of studying data practices in the physical sciences, life sciences, medicine, engineering, and technology, this talk will address the question of “How is ‘interdisciplinary’ done?” by presenting several case examples. One scenario from the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing will illustrate how one research team’s evidentiary signal may be noise to another team with whom they are collaborating. A scenario from the Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Informatics will illustrate how methods decisions made early in the data collection process determine how and whether other disciplines can make use of physical specimens later. The third scenario, drawn from astronomy, will demonstrate how data taken from a single instrument can diverge in form and evidentiary value when processed by scientists in multiple sub-disciplines of the field. While data sharing and reuse are concerns in all of these fields, concepts of data “use” differ widely.