Special Session 6 at the IAU General Assembly, Prague
ASTRONOMICAL DATA MANAGEMENT
14:00-17:30, Tuesday 22 August 2006
Program
(Titles are provisional)
* Ray Norris – welcome and introduction
* Rob Kennicut – keynote talk
* David Schade - Data Needs for New Projects
* Ajit Kembhavi - Challenging the Digital Divide
* Bob Hanisch - Moving Data from Journals into Data Centres and the VO
* Elizabeth Griffin - Curation, Preservation, Migration
* Francoise Genova - Data Centres in the Virtual Observatory
* Panel discussion (tbc) - Ray Norris, Guenther Eichhorn, Anita Richards, Peter Fox, Alex Szalay
Invitation to Present Papers: We invite poster papers on subjects relevant to this Session, which will be published by the IAU in a Proceedings along with the Invited Oral papers above. Please submit your abstract
here by 26 June 2006.
Contact person: Ray Norris
Email: Ray.Norris(at)csiro.au
Overview
Astronomy has a distinguished tradition of using technology to accelerate the quality and effectiveness of science, and data-intensive initiatives such as the Virtual Observatory lead the way amongst other fields of science. However, astronomical data are not uniformly well-managed, and our current freedom to create open-access databases is threatened by those who would like all data to be subject to strict Intellectual Property controls. We, like other fields of science, need to establish and agree on a set of guiding principles for the management of astronomical data.
Controversial Questions include:
- Should all astronomical data be placed in the public domain, or are there good reasons why an observatory should keep its data to itself? Should an astronomer or institution charge money for access to their results?
- Should observatories dump all their archive data, good and bad, into the public domain and into the Virtual Observatory (the cheap option), or should only validated good quality data be placed there (the expensive option)? Or maybe only peer-reviewed published data? If the expensive option, who pays?
- Should we continue to fund new telescopes without considering how we will process their data, when some successful telescope construction projects find that as much as half their budget is spent on data processing?
- Is it good for astronomy that some of us enjoy instant internet access to data and journals, while others languish in a dark age of photocopied preprints?
- Why don't all the tables published in Ap.J. and A&A appear in NED and CDS? What would be needed to make this happen?
- Should we invest astronomy dollars to save musty old plates in damp cellars, or to build newer, better telescopes? Will we have old photometric data available when the next local supernova goes off?
- How do we raise our game to persuade funding agencies that we are making good use of their research dollar, when a substantial fraction of top-quality data obtained with world-class instruments lies unpublished and inaccessible?
Discussion leading up to the Special Session
Before the Special Session at the IAU GA, there will be an on-line discussion on each of seven topics, listed below. In several cases, the on-line discussion is chaired by the person who will present the invited paper at the Special Session. Participation in the on-line discussion is open to all astronomers and data specialists, and instructions for joining can be found
here.
- Topic 1: OpenAccess - Alignment with OECD, ICSU, and IAU recommendations regarding open access to astronomical data. Close collaboration with colleagues in ICSU, CODATA, and other branches of science, especially when developing strategies to prevent excessive legal or IP ownership constraints being imposed on astronomical data.
- Topic 2: NewProjects - Recognition of the importance of considering data processing, storage, and management needs from the conception stage of a new project.
- Topic 3: DigitalDivide - Provisions to ensure equitable access to data and information by scientists in developing countries (or in underprivileged sections of developed countries).
- Topic 4: JournalData - Development of better processes to enable data in journals to be integrated in to data centres and the VO.
- Topic 5: SafeGuard - Development of protocols for the long-term curation, preservation, and migration (between formats or media) of data, including validation and quality flagging.
- Topic 6: DataCentresVO - Ensuring that the needs of data centres and the VO are addressed in the framework.
Other links
