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RECONCILING THE VIEWS OF THE STAKEHOLDERS 75 6 Reconciling the Views of the Stakeholders This chapter provides guidelines for negotiating among stakeholdersâ research scientists, private-sector organizations, government agencies, policy makers, and the general public. Special emphasis is given to interactions between the private sector and the research community and between private- sector organizations and government agencies, where the potential for conflict is greatest. GUIDELINES FOR INTERACTIONS BETWEEN SCIENTISTS AND PRIVATE-SECTOR ORGANIZATIONS As illustrated in previous chapters, the involvement of private-sector organizations in collecting environmental data and creating and disseminating data products creates both problems and opportunities for environmental researchers. Environmental research scientists obtain the great majority of their data from public-purpose information systems but supplement this source by making additional measurements or purchasing commercial data. Guidelines for minimizing friction and enhancing cooperation between research scientists and private-sector organizations in public-purpose environmental information systems are given below. Purchasing Data for Scientific Research Commercial data providers may offer a valuable source of data to scientists (e.g., see Example 5.7), but not all environmental data collected by the commercial vendors are suitable for scientific purposes
RECONCILING THE VIEWS OF THE STAKEHOLDERS 76 because of issues of quality, spatial or temporal coverage, price, or restrictions. Scientific concerns about purchasing commercial data include the following: ⢠Restrictions could prevent scientists from using data in customary ways, such as sharing data with colleagues, using them for multiple purposes, or publishing them in scientific journals. ⢠Research proposals that include the cost of purchasing data (especially projects that require large volumes of data) are likely to be more expensive and thus less competitive in the proposal process. ⢠Mechanisms for the scientific community to convey their collective needs to commercial vendors are currently insufficient. ⢠Commercial data may not meet scientific specifications. ⢠Many commercial instruments are tasked to collect data only in specific areas, which prevents assembly of global datasets. ⢠Documentation of the quality of the data and the methods by which they were acquired may be inadequate. Complete documentation would include details of the design of the instruments used, the results of calibration experiments, the way instruments were deployed and their sampling, random and systematic measurement errors determined from comparisons with other data, the algorithms used to process the data, and a log of exceptional circumstances surrounding the measurements themselves. ⢠There is usually no provision for long-term archival of commercial data, which leads to gaps in the long-term record of the environment and hinders the research of future generations of scientists. On the one hand, scientists encountering barriers such as use restrictions commonly abandon a particular line of research, rather than invest resources to work around the barrier. The impact of such missed opportunities is difficult to assess. On the other hand, scientists are opportunists who will work with whatever data are available. If the data are intended to be used for just a short- term research project, restrictions on subsequent uses may be acceptable. If the purchased data will also be contributed to an archive used by a broader community, then restrictions on other uses may undermine the long-term interests of science as a whole.
RECONCILING THE VIEWS OF THE STAKEHOLDERS 77 Conclusion. Scientific practices require (1) full and open access to data and core products and (2) peer-reviewed publication. In addition, global change research requires the compilation of high-quality, long-term, global databases that are suitable for a wide variety of scientific purposes. Private-sector entities that supply data to public-purpose information systems must conform to these practices. Scientists can obtain commercial data either by purchasing them directly from commercial vendors or by participating as investigators in a government- sponsored data purchase program.1 Scientists using research grants to buy data have a number of possible workarounds for reducing their costs. ⢠Use data offered at an educational discount. ⢠Purchase small quantities of data and tailor the research accordingly (e.g., Example 5.7). ⢠Redefine specifications to avoid commercial elements, such as by using only spectral bands from high-resolution instruments that are of little or no interest to commercial customers. ⢠Delay purchasing data until the commercial value declines (e.g., Example 5.3).2 ⢠Substitute something for the raw data, such as data that have been manipulated to remove commercial (or confidential) elements (e.g., Examples 5.10 and 5.11). 1For example, under NASA's $50 million Scientific Data Purchase program, NASA- approved researchers can obtain access to data already collected by certain commercial vendors or they can task selected satellites or aircraft (e.g., IKONOS) to make new observations in specific locations. The terms of access are negotiated by NASA with input from the research community on issues of data quality, science relevance, data usability, likely breadth of use, levels of collaboration, and data rights. 2Some applications, such as monitoring natural disasters, require near real-time access to data. In such cases, scientists may have no choice but to use restricted data. See J.E.Janowiak, R.J.Joyce, and Y.Yarosh, 2001, A real-time global half-hour pixel- resolution infrared dataset and its applications, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, v. 82(2), p. 205â218.
