Researcher examines complexities of data-sharing in four research projects

Researcher examines complexities of data-sharing in four research projects

September 25, 2015 by Tiffany Esmailian

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-09-complexities-data-sharing.html#jCp

Christine Borgman, the Distinguished Professor and Presidential Chair in Information Studies at UCLA, looks at how researchers in a data-intensive environment handle and share information.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-09-complexities-data-sharing.html#jCp

Christine Borgman, who studies how research information is retrieved, processed, curated and conveyed, is in the right place at the right time—when the demand for data by researchers and scholars in many different disciplines is greater than ever before.

But sharing data isn't as simple as it sounds.

"Data are complex, compound, heterogeneous and messy objects that rarely lend themselves to easy sharing or reuse," said Borgman, the Distinguished Professor and Presidential Chair in Information Studies at UCLA and a scholar with degrees in mathematics, library and information science, and communication research.

Borgman and her research team at UCLA's Center for Knowledge Infrastructures will be analyzing how data are handled in four different research projects in astronomy, biology and the medical sciences with the aim of simplifying the complexities of data practices and challenging prevailing assumptions about the value of sharing data. To help them accomplish this, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation recently awarded her research group a three-year grant that posed this question in its title: "If data sharing is the answer, what is the question?"

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-09-complexities-data-sharing.html#jCp