An interesting article in the Information World Review Sept/Oct 2010 p.19 "Data without doubts" by Archana Venkatraman reviews the implications of the recent scandal at East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) when computer hackers broke into the Unit's system and posted more than 1,000 confidential emails on the Internet. It transpired that CRU no longer had the raw data on which it had based its global warming predictions: the hackers accused the scientists of illegally destroying embarrassing information, manipulating research results and suppressing evidence. Three separate enquiries cleared the scientists but public confidence in the global warming theories was shaken.
At least something good has come out of the affair: the need to preserve raw data and allow open access to it has now been identified as a pressing concern and the JISC's efforts, such as the managing research data programme, to enable Academics to make data openly available now have added credibility. The UEA is one of eight university departments around the country (Bath, Cambridge, Mancheseter, Oxford, Southampton and Kings College London) which will be working towards models of better data management.
At least something good has come out of the affair: the need to preserve raw data and allow open access to it has now been identified as a pressing concern and the JISC's efforts, such as the managing research data programme, to enable Academics to make data openly available now have added credibility. The UEA is one of eight university departments around the country (Bath, Cambridge, Mancheseter, Oxford, Southampton and Kings College London) which will be working towards models of better data management.
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