Open Data for Science, Policy, and the Public Good

Abstract

Supporters of open data believe that free and complete access to research data is beneficial for science, public policy, and society. In environmental science and policy, open data systems can enable relevant research and inform evidence-based governmental decisions. This article examines the unlikely case of Brazil's National Institute for Space Research's transition toward an open data model. Considering Brazil's young democracy, incipient practice of government transparency and accountability, and lacking a tradition of science-policy dialogue, this case is a striking example of how open data can support public debate by making information about forest cover widely available. The case shows the benefits and challenges of developing such open data systems, and highlights the various forms of accessibility involved in making data available to the public.

What drives and inhibits researchers to share and use open research data? A systematic literature review to analyze factors influencing open research data adoption

“…Offer individuals the opportunity to better understand the social and physical world in which we all live [50] Provide decision-makers with the necessary facts to address complex, often trans-national problems [50] Encourage validation and verification of research results [2,56] and enable falsification [11] Help to identify errors and discourage research fraud [8,9] Permitting in-depth public scrutiny by making it easier to analyze, process and combine data [19] Encourage multiple perspectives [8,42] and allow other researchers to explore new interpretations of data [17,56], ask new questions [57] and test different hypotheses [42] Allow valuable resources to contribute far beyond their original analysis [9] Facilitating other researchers' ability to pursue new lines of research [57] Facilitating comparisons between methods and sites [57] Data reuse can lead to more findings from the same dataset and increase the knowledge in the field [17] Personal drivers / intrinsic motivations: better science, move the field forward more quickly and easily [48] Sense of responsibility about acceleration of scientific research [55] Usability [48] Possibility to better advance the area of research [52] Size of the research community and the extent to which data is viewed as a tremendous asset [52] Encourage economic development, spur innovation [2] Identify synergies [11] Accelerated scientific progress [11,17,57] and contributing to the advancement of research [18,42] Gaining new insight for data-driven research [19] Enable citizen science and encourage public activism [1] Improved discoverability [9,…”

“…Both sharing and using open research data have the revolutionary potentials for forwarding scientific advancement [1][2][3][4]. Open research data use combined with new Information and a particular standpoint to fulfil certain aims or express certain views on the nature of the topic and how it is to be investigated, and the effective evaluation of these documents in relation to the research being proposed" [27].…”

La auditoría en la gestión de la transparencia del sector público

“…El creciente interés por los Open Data va ligado, por una parte, a que la sociedad disponga de una información beneficiosa para la investigación y, consecuentemente, a una mejora de la política pública y de la sociedad (Sá 2016), y por otra parte a la implantación de una política de transparencia en el ejercicio del gobierno público (Gunnlaugsdottir 2016), unida ésta a un código ético para la práctica de dicha transparencia (Oztoprak 2016). La tecnología (TIC) permite que avancemos en establecer unas relaciones próximas e inmediatas entre gobiernos y ciudadanos.…”

The possibilities of Open Science for knowledge transfer in the science-policy interface

“…The participation of scientists (along with other stakeholder groups) is common in the preparation of various policy strategies and development plans. These strategy documents, however, tend to be poorly aligned with each other [Eesti Keskkonnaministeerium, 2005] and rarely end up being fully implemented [Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2011;Rahandusministeerium, 2006], meaning that the strategies are not an efficient tool to transform expert knowledge into policy.…”

“…First, claims about the positive impact of Open Science on knowledge transfer are being brought forward both in policy and vision documents [e.g. Pilat and Fukasaku, 2007;European Commission, 2016;Boulton et al, 2012;Look and Marsh, 2012; The Royal Society, & The Academy of Medical Sciences, 2018] and in academic papers [Davis and Walters, 2011;ElSabry, 2017;Sá and Grieco, 2016]. The European Union and many national research funding organizations are incorporating the principles of Open Science into their funding requirements and Estonia is currently considering its Open Science policy.…”