One of the operational documents that can sit under the principles could be one about credit. There are movements afoot to get to a Biorepository Impact Factor, where recognition would come to repository managers, data contributors that become known as high quality, useful and useable (see Anne Cambon-Thomsen, CERN France). And also movements to shift the age-old and now dated promotions criteria within academic centers, moving toward factors that capture team science, resource development, and community-based work. See CCPH.org.

I do agree with Rachel that the overall tone of the principles needs to be more aspirational, values-based, and rally the tribe toward aligning with these shared commitments. The whole can be edited to leave a statement of these core commitments and values, and leave the technical details to the operational documents that will enact those values.

(1) the values underlying the document (particularly those beyond sheer efficiency) need to be better articulated in the introduction to the document as presumably we want this to serve as a stand alone document.

(2) particularly with Aled Edwards’s talk in mind, I think the document could benefit significantly from a bit more aspirational talk about how to create incentives for participation in this sort of undertaking. Given that certain regimes of credit, practice, and exchange are deeply ingrained in scientific culture, and without some major shifts and changes (in journals, academic structures, and funding schemes/agencies among other institutions), it will be particularly difficult for younger scientists to participate even if they wish to do so.

My interest is in seeing a principle about open communication and transparency about how the data is used. This could be operationalized into a data use agreement. It need not be complicated – I think there are good reasons for feedback loops on how the data from the Commons is being used: accountability to contributors, credit to resource managers, and minimizing duplicate studies or inquiries (you would not want to replicate the siloed inquiry process that goes on now, where failed experiments are going on in 15 houses at once).

One other minor point re: Terms of Use Agreement – I’d advocate for a tick box on each statement that the user is being asked to agree to – otherwise, we all scroll to the bottom and tick the one box without really absorbing what we are agreeing to.

Thanks for your efforts! Kelly

Alice

Interesting distinction between legal rights-holders and contributers. I’ve struggled with the word contributer and the role of the participant as a “data contributer”.

It’s definitely a balance of giving participants a voice but not making it so burdensome that no data could ever be contributed to the commons.

Good stuff! See you in a few days.

https://www.collaborativedrug.com/buzz/2011/02/25/collaborative-drug-discovery-inc-royal-society-of-chemistrys-chemspider-announce-partnership/

And CDD Public data for commercial, humanitarian, and drug repurposing applications here:

https://www.collaborativedrug.com/pages/public_access

I love Misha’s vision of making ‘return of research results to human participants the norm’ and would go even further– not just results, but all data associated with an individual participant.

A couple of additional thoughts:

1. Must our endeavor be limited to disease models? What about health models? The word “health” might be inclusive of both good and ill health.

2. I advocate stronger language exhorting legal rights-holders to inform (maybe even seek explicit consent from?) individuals whose data is being contributed to the commons. The long term benefits of greater public engagement may be worth the short term burden placed on scientists.

Said differently, perhaps we should redefine the word, “contributor” to include individuals on whose biology the data is based– not just the scientists collecting and curating that data.