The digital revolution has created new opportunities in the management and use of all types of research (and other) data and information. Most areas of scientific research are now data-driven and this has produced a broad range of quantitative and qualitative improvements in the research enterprise. The communication of research results in myriad forms, both formal and informal, has also increased and improved. Moreover, the day-to-day practices of the established fields of science and engineering are changing in response to the emergence of new computer- and network-based modes of communication and collaboration. While the technical systems have completed the shift from print to digital media, the social systems are far from rationalized and have not made a similarly effective transformation. The rate of technological change has created many challenges in the effective and efficient exploitation of those digital research resources. Many of the organizational and legal models from the print era have been transferred to the digital network context without adjusting sufficiently for the qualitatively different research capabilities online. New models of scholarly exchange and knowledge production are emerging, but they are still poorly understood or not fully established and utilized. Although automated knowledge production and diffusion promise radical improvements to our capacity to extract, integrate, and exploit new knowledge from the vast stores of available digital data and information, many roadblocks remain. At the same time, old endemic problems such as quality assurance, metadata generation and maintenance, long-term digital preservation, and assessment methodologies for research data and information activities not only have not been addressed successfully in many cases, but new dimensions and concerns have been added by emerging technologies and applications. Both the policies and practices associated with deriving greater returns from the investments in digital knowledge resources, especially online, require sustained focus, analysis, and advice.
The federal agencies together make public investments of many billions of dollars per year in producing or externally funding the generation of huge and diverse data streams as inputs into the research enterprise. They similarly produce or fund the creation of ever-increasing volumes of scientific information,both peer-reviewed and gray literature, that embodies the results of much of the research output. As the nation's stewards or funders of these digital research assets, they have a major stake in continually improving their management, policies, and utilization. However, the investments and policies for managing, preserving, disseminating, and reusing the data and information resources are lagging and are generally perceived to be inadequate. Many unresolved issues arise at the different levels of the research system in this regard, affecting established research strategies and priorities. They involve not just scientific and technical elements, but institutional, economic, legal, and socio-cultural aspects. The most pervasive dysfunctions occur at the interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral, and international levels, and in public-private partnerships. The problems in successfully forging relationships for managing and using digital knowledge resources can have significant negative effects, such as structural inefficiencies and lost opportunity costs, on our national research and innovation systems, economic competitiveness, and the greater social welfare.
Because research data and information are of great importance to the progress of science and the nation?s competitiveness in the knowledge-based economy, these issues need to be well understood by the various stakeholders in our nation's research enterprise, including the research communities in government, academia, and industry, research policymakers and managers in the Administration and Congress, and ultimately the public that both supports these activities and the benefits from their improved effectiveness. Acting through the NRC, the proposed Board on Research Data and Information would establish a new interdisciplinary mechanism and focal point for bringing greater understanding and visibility to these issues, for adding value to the sponsors? objectives and priorities in these areas, and for helping to improve returns on the federal agencies? investments in a time of increasingly constrained budgets.
