The Intertidal Update - June 2024
One of the things we often talk about at Intertidal is culture change. Our mission is to make more ocean data open and accessible in order to drive better ocean decisions. Broader movements calling for open science and data have been around for decades (half a century if you’re OG FOSS). Data from government observing platforms, like satellites and sensor arrays, is generally open and many public agencies and funders are now requiring projects to make their data open. Isn’t this enough? Won’t any and all ocean data be readily available to anyone, any day now?
Obviously, we don't think so, because we’re here doing this work and writing about it. Open data mandates contribute to changing data practices, but they’re not enough without more how and why, like identifying and aligning incentives for data sharing, building people’s data stewardship capacity, and giving credit for data work. To paraphrase the Third Wave of Open Data report, while early waves of open data policy focused on requirements they later matured into supporting data partnerships, purpose-driven data releases, and data rights. This is where ocean professionals should drop in1 , because tracking progress towards goals like the UN SDGs or regional climate adaptation means integrating data across multiple sources, including private companies and Indigenous communities where open data mandates don’t apply. Culture change needs carrots, not just sticks, so what makes people and institutions want to care for data and collaborate?
Which brings us to this thoroughly fascinating history of the Bermuda Principles. These started as a list sketched out on a hotel whiteboard2 and became the rules for rapid data sharing that drove the Human Genome Project. And while this might seem like a straightforward, academic and government-funded open data example, there were fierce fights over patents on all sides. Still, the participants agreed that:
“…all human genomic sequence information, generated by centers for large-scale human sequencing, should be freely available and in the public domain in order to encourage further research and development, and to maximize its benefit to society.”
When we think about a future where it’s easy to find and reuse ocean data, or contribute data and information to an ocean project, we think about how to motivate and support people along those journeys so that data and information encourage research and provide benefits to society.
But maybe we’re thinking about culture change all wrong? What are we missing? We’re starting to plan a fall gathering to talk about the state of ocean data, with special attention to all that data and information that falls outside the big government observing programs. If you’d like to join us, or have suggestions for who to invite, let us know. There will definitely be whiteboards.
— Kate & Rachael
This month’s special thanks for feedback & inspiration go to: Allen Gunn, Amanda Hickman, Tony MacDonald, Jed Sundwall, Melissa Rosa, Ginger Zielinskie, Mary Gleason, Peter Molnar, and the SEEKCommons community.
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2🏆 Data documentation award to the Duke library system for preserving these pictures and meeting notes