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An Astronomers’ Data Manifesto (v2.0)

We, the global community of astronomy, aspire to the following guidelines for managing astronomical data, believing that this would maximise the rate and cost-effectiveness of scientific discovery.

We do not underestimate this challenge, but believe that it is achievable if astronomers, observatories, journals, data centres, and the Virtual Observatory Alliance work together in overcoming the hurdles.

1. All major tables, images, and spectra published in journals should appear in the astronomical data centres.

• We, the astronomers, as data consumers, have significantly increased our scientific productivity by using data centres such as CDS, NED, ADS, etc. That productivity would be even higher if we had that same access to data that we and our colleagues, as data producers, place in the journals.
• Journals should, in collaboration with data centres, define formats, table descriptions, and metadata that are easy for authors to adhere to, and can automatically be translated into a format (e.g. VOTable, FITS, etc) that can be entered by the data centre into their database. We note that authors are already required to adhere to strict formats for bibliographic references, but are not asked to adhere to standards for data tables.
• Authors should be invited by the journals to submit electronic tables, spectra, and images to journals using standard machine-readable formats together with their metadata. If they choose to do so, their data will automatically be transferred to the data centres, resulting in greater effectiveness of their results, and presumably an increased number of citations. If they choose not to do so, then, as at present, there is no guarantee that their table will appear in a data centre.
• In order that the required metadata are available to authors, it will also be necessary for observatories to ensure that all required metadata (e.g. filter wavelengths) are stored in data produced by the observatory. We note that this is already regarded as best practice by the world’s leading astronomical observatories.

2. All data obtained with publicly-funded observatories should, after appropriate proprietary periods, be placed in the public domain.

• We recognise the additional cost of doing so, but note that several major facilities have found that this is a cost-effective way of generating additional science per taxpayer dollar.
• This carries an implicit requirement for appropriate user interfaces and data formats, which is within the brief of the Virtual Observatory and the data centres.
• This principle was adopted as a Resolution by the IAU at the XXVth GA in Sydney, and is aligned with OECD and ICSU resolutions.

3. In any new major astronomical construction project, the data processing, storage, migration, and management requirements should be built in at an early stage of the project plan, and costed along with other parts of the project.

• This may seem a statement of the obvious, especially to those major projects that already routinely follow this practice. However, not all projects have shown such foresight, resulting in instruments which perform well technically, but which have not delivered the science that was expected.

4. Astronomers in all countries should have the same access to astronomical data and information.

• Major astronomical journals and data centres should provide free or reduced-cost electronic access to institutions in developing countries
• Where broadband internet access is not available to institutions, the IAU will work with other agencies and organisations to provide that access.

5. Legacy astronomical data can be valuable, and high-priority legacy data should be preserved and stored in digital form in the data centres.

• We recognise the value of legacy astronomical data, but funding for these activities is necessarily in competition with funding for new instruments, and this activity is only justifiable if the value of the preserved data can be demonstrated.
• We need to reach a community consensus as to which data should be preserved, digitised, and migrated into the data centres.
• We note in particular that time-variable phenomena, and of objects or events that cannot be re-observed, are amongst the highest priority, but we recognise the difficulty of establishing which data are likely to be most valuable in the future.

6. The IAU should work with other international organisations to achieve our common goals and learn from our colleagues in other fields.

• We recognise that other fields of science are tackling similar issues, and that some of our challenges are common to all areas of science. The IAU is the appropriate body to build and maintain the global networks and organisations necessary to attack the common problem.
• An example of a common goal is to preserve the ability to place public domain scientific databases on the internet, which is deprecated by some groups concerned with the licensing of intellectual property.
• ICSU and CODATA, with the participation of their member scientific unions, are actively involved in many of the issues discussed here, and the IAU should become a full participant in such activities.

Click here for an explanation of why we have created this manifesto.

Click here to discuss any aspects of this.

-- RayNorris - 13 Feb 2006