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Issue Based Studies
Issue Based Studies
In addition to case studies, the OeSS project is conducting a set of issue-based studies, which have included work on ownership, privacy and data protection, and collaboration. With the award of the e-Infrastructure Project , issues of sustainability have been added to our list of prospective issues.
These issue-based studies will be ongoing throughout the duration of the project. They will be informed by continuing reviews of literature, in-depth interviews, uniquely tailored studies, and the on-going case studies.
Ownership . Work on ownership is building on the work of an e-Society project focused on this issue, entitled Copyright Ownership of Medical Data in Collaborative Computing Environments', headed by Professor David Vaver, an OeSS advisor and associate, and Marina Jirotka. http://www.york.ac.uk/res/e-society/projects/12.htm While completed, themes of this project are being further explored within OeSS.
IPR . IPR continues to be a focus of Paul David and Michael Spence's work on the institutional infrastructures of e-Science. An additional element of research in this area is focused on issues of open source and open science. Current understanding and possible future directions have been brought together in the OII Discussion Paper by David, den Besten, and Schroeder (2006) ��How Open is e-Science?' [submitted for presentation to the IEEE 2nd International Conference on e-Science and Grid Computing, Amsterdam, December 2006]. This paper presents the rationale and preliminary findings of an ongoing study: structured interview data is being gathered on U.K. e-Science projects' policies and practices affecting conditions and terms of access to data, materials, tools and findings, both within the project and for external peers. Internal issues of data stream management, informal policies regarding publication of results and retention of data by project members, as well as contracting/licensing and standards compliance are special topics for examination in this study. An expanded schedule of interviews with project leaders and co-P.I.'s in the e-science community has been drawn up, and arrangements are being made to conduct as many of these as will be practicable in the near future. The stratified sample has been designed with reference to the core functional elements of e-science programme projects, as the latter have been identified in the OII Discussion Paper by Den Besten, Fry and Schroeder (2006): ��Data Management, Applications, Middleware and Infrastructure'.
Privacy and Data Protection. A literature survey on privacy and ethics in research generally and in Internet studies in particular has been conducted. Key case studies raise related issues.
Sustainability. The OeSS team participated in both the e-Infrastructures project and the Sustainability Working Party kick off meetings held in Manchester on the 27th June. Jenny Fry is the OeSS representative on the Sustainability Working Party. The OeSS team aims to develop a questionnaire based study that contributes to NCeSS work on this issue.
Institutional Infrastructures. On the issue of embedding Virtual Research Environments (VREs) in Higher Education Institutions 13 interviews have been conducted with developers and other involved with these projects. These have been transcribed and analysed. User engagement has been used as an initial focal point to begin an investigation of collaboration and of institutional infrastructure. A paper on user engagement was written and presented at the NCeSS conference.