Bioinformatics: Converting Data to Knowledge: Workshop Summary (2000)

A Workshop Summary by Robert Pool and Joan Esnayra, Board on Biology, National Research Council

Synopsis: Summary of a workshop on data issues related to bioinformatics. Illustrates how the growing availability of data is transforming science and engineering.

Improving Access to and Confidentiality of Research Data: Report of a Workshop (2000)

Christopher Mackie and Norman Bradburn, Editors, National Research Council

Synopsis: Explores the challenges of improving access to data with confidentiality restrictions. The challenge of improving access to data with confidentiality restrictions goes across several fields.

The Digital Dilemma: Intellectual Property in the Information Age (2000)

Committee on Intellectual Property Rights in the Emerging Information Infrastructure, National Research Council

Synopsis: In-depth examination of copyright issues, including those related to digital archiving, in the wake of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Relevant to the changing environment for scientific publishing, an important aspect of the context for this study, as well as the role of libraries.

A Question of Balance: Private Rights and Public Interest in Scientific and Technical Databases (1999)

Committee for a Study on Promoting Access to Scientific and Technical Data for the Public Interest, National Research Council

Synopsis: Describes the importance of scientific and technical databases in research, and standard practices for production, dissemination, and use of data in federal, nonprofit, and commercial contexts. Develops principles and guidelines for agencies, research institutions, and investigators. Explores various proposals for creating new intellectual property protection for noncopyrightable databases current at the time of the study, along with the pros and cons of these proposals. The European Union had recently created such protection. Several of the principles and guidelines are consistent with this study, including: (1) scientific and technical data owned or controlled by the government should be made available for use by not-for-profit and commercial entities alike on a nonexclusive basis and should be disseminated to all users at no more than the marginal cost of reproduction and distribution, whenever possible; (2) federal funding agencies should require university and other not-for profit researchers or their employing institutions that use federal funds, wholly or in substantial part, in creating databases not to grant exclusive rights to such databases when