Data sharing
The SPEaR working party charged with advancing a cross-sectoral and cross-agency approach to social science data saving and sharing is developing three main strands of activity.
The group, comprising representatives from government agencies, universities and the private research sector, is first of all looking at international policies, protocols and practice for saving and sharing social data, and how these can be translated to the New Zealand situation. Secondly, it is looking at coordinated archival facilities for the tertiary education sector, where a lot of social research data is generated. Its third strand of work involves advancing new approaches for government departments to utilise and save data better in the social agencies where research is conducted.
Eric Pyle, Director, Environmental and Social Development at the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology and a member of the data saving and sharing working party, said Statistics New Zealand was developing a data archive of the most important statistics produced by government (Tier 1), and that the working party was looking at the issues related to saving and sharing other data.
He said ‘next generation’ internet capability meant it would soon be possible to shift large data sets easily. “That raises issues of ensuring there is compatibility in terms of standards both for the data and for the metadata – that is, information about the data, similar to the abstract to a paper, so you can see if you want to read it,” he said.
“Getting access to different data sets and being able to link and match data in ways that are not possible at the moment means we’ll be able to improve our practice. Just as sharing data in the physical sciences has resulted in new insights into the way ecosystems, for example, function, so it will generate new knowledge in the social sciences. It will also mean better use of existing data, which means better value for the money spent on data collection. Improved data saving and sharing practices improves the utilisation of the knowledge base. It’s all part of information technology coming of age and helping us record and create connected understanding for social improvements.”
