Berner-Lee

Ah, more new words.  "Data" is not a discrete unit of information in Tim Berners-Lee's TED talk; it is a link of such information.  What an interesting concept.  I like it overall, but I think that he needs a new term coined for this concept, because for some of us, "data" is only a fact or a figure; not the link it has to anything else.

The example about scientific data is very interesting because my sister used to be a USDA botanist, and is now a second-career librarian.  (For reasons not yet explored, all but one of my five siblings chose science as their undergraduate majors; two went on to get advanced degrees in the sciences.  It makes for interesting, if sometimes incomprehensible, table conversation.)  Anyway, part of her job is to create an institution repository database where all of the scientific research done at her university can be "published", and accessed publicly.   This is what Berner-Lee wants everyone to do; to put their information out on the web.

The problem is, scientific data is legally owned by the scientist (unless legal disclaimers come into the picture).  A scientist's discoveries are his or her daily bread.  They don't want to share.  Sharing means their marketability goes down.  Sharing means they might lose the edge in whatever particular field they are in.  Sharing means a potential loss of income.

So, due to the way the system is set up, scientific information - especially cutting-edge discoveries - is very valuable, and not to be shared.  Ergo, the problem with Berner-Lee's example.  Great that some scientists shared some information, out of the goodness of their hearts, I guess.  But the majority are not going to do so.

Recently, the US government has made it mandatory to share study results - with the public - if the study is funded by the government.  As many, many studies are, that's a big shift in the landscape.  It will be interesting to see how quickly the inevitable happens - more scientific data available to the public, faster.

So, I do hope they get it all linked together and easily searchable, although I myself still think that for social networks and personal information, there should be clear opt-out options.  Fascinating view of the next step for the internet.