National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States (NOAA) is continually seeking ways to better share and use data in support of healthier oceans and of safer conditions in fisheries and other industries. NOAA collects, manages, shares, and uses data for regulatory compliance, as well as to track catch numbers and model environmental changes.
Through decades of different partnerships, NOAA and its collaborators have relied on a wide range of agreements to guide their data sharing. As with most industries, the formality and the compliance with those agreements has shifted with changes in organizational responsibilities, technologies and industry norms. Modernization projects, such as the ones currently underway at NOAA, exert varied pressures on these agreements. Often, the demands of data systems do not match up with the existing formal or informal practices of data sharing.
Working alongside Kate Wing and the Intertidal Agency, Digital Public developed a set of resources to support NOAA’s data sharing and data use practices. This included a report that explored the opportunities and challenges NOAA and its communities face, as well as a creative-commons licensed contracting guide to support the creation of better data sharing agreements that are easy to understand and easier to use. These tools are one part of ongoing efforts by Kate Wing, Intertidal Agency, and many others to help scientists, managers, and industry craft better data systems for public benefit.
The report and accompanying guide focus on the key elements that define a data sharing agreement (parties, term, jurisdiction, remedy) and explore approaches for discussing and negotiating these agreements. To adopt and sustain new data practices requires not just new guidelines, but often new capacity (through training and hiring) and a new attention to how contractual relationships are forged and maintained. It is these deeper organizational investments that lay the groundwork for real change, by making sound data practices a shared value and a familiar vocabulary across an entire team or institution.
Digital Public believes that clearer relationships and common values are the most longstanding and transformative benefits of our work.
To read more about our work in this area:
https://intertidal.agency/s/Intertidal-Data-Sharing-Report-Nov-11-2020.pdf
https://intertidal.agency/s/Intertidal-Resources-for-Data-Sharing-Nov-11-2020.pd