[LINK] Preservation of Data

[Markus Buchhorn]

At 10:46 AM 12/04/2007, Glen Turner wrote:
>The funding contract for most research funded by the federal
>government requires research data to be archived. The ARC
>have their funding deeds online if you need details.

The word 'requires' a little bit stronger than what the deeds actually say; though there have been some recent improvements by the ARC and NHMRC. However, even if we get real teeth there is still a slight problem with enforcement, and a serious problem with "achievable compliance", i.e. there is no infrastructure in most disciplines to actually do what the funding deeds (notionally) require you to do.

>As an aside, the ARC archiving requirements conflict with those
>in the Telecommunications Act, which is why AARNet has difficulty
>giving traffic data to Australian researchers, even under strict
>conditions of confidentiality. I've had queries outstanding with
>the ARC for over a year but there has been no response beyond
>"we'll get back to you".

I hadn't spotted that example, thank you. It's also the case in the medical space where ethics committees fundamentally clash with research funding guidelines, and even with each other (in some states each hospital has its own ethics committee, and some research spans multiple hospitals....)

Cheers,
        Markus