2009 Interviews

Open Data and the Future of Funded Research

Wilbanks, John; Chen, Robert S.; Cohen, Steven Alan; Rundle, Andrew G.

Are researchers ready to share their data? The panelists discuss the advantages of sharing data openly as well as the practical implications for researchers, particularly those who work with confidential information or who plan to mine a data set for years to come. Panelists: John Wilbanks is the Vice President for Science at Creative Commons, where he runs the Science Commons project. Robert Chen is director of CIESIN (Center for International Earth Science Information Network), a research unit of the Earth Institute at Columbia. He is currently Secretary-General of the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) of the International Council for Science (ICSU), and a member of the ICSU ad hoc Strategic Coordinating Committee on Information and Data. Andrew Rundle is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health and runs several research projects studying how built and social environments of neighborhoods in New York City influence health. To a large degree his research relies upon access to data generated by New York City governmental agencies.