In your worst nightmares
How experimental scientists are
doing provenance for themselves

Non-st
ackup
esn’t b andard/
bly do
Proba inconsi
stent
data fo
rmats
Record o
f
data anal
ning?
ysis? ersio
V

Non-st
ackup
esn’t b andard/
bly do
Proba inconsi
stent
data fo
rmats
Record o
f
data anal
ning?
ysis? ersio
V
Uses Excel for data analysis?!?!!

...a typical dataset...

We have...
tp://www.flickr.com/photos/schnurrbart/43568532/ CC-BY-SA

But how did we end up here?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidmasters/2884480103/ CC-BY-SA

...we used to be good at this...
© Cell Press, Nature Publishing Group, American Chem
Soc, American Soc Microbiology, fair use claimed

When it was on paper...
...you had to ask for a copy...
...and you said so in the paper...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nbachiyski/2186228572/ CC-BY

But in the online world...
...too many people
...too many files
...too much movement
...it’s all too hard isn’t it?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/antjeverena/3368703708/ CC-BY

But all is not lost...

...because even online researchers
still care about citation

http://twitter.com/mrgunn/statuses/1542572037
http://is.gd/tgaz

http://is.gd/thvE
http://is.gd/thwD

Link to information...
...acknowledge source...
...evolving best practice

http://is.gd/thzK
?

http://is.gd/thAA

Expectations of link behaviour
Granularity of citation
Evolving best practice
Some technical problems....mostly social

Some real research data...

Published data... http://is.gd/thCK

Published data... http://is.gd/thEg

Data summary... http://is.gd/thEX

Original experiment http://is.gd/thFa

Versioning... http://is.gd/thGb

Versioning and provenance...
...through linked open data...
...and third party timestamps

Video
http://is.gd/thMB

URI for every object...
...can link in or out
No semantics to links
(at the moment)

http://is.gd/thVr

Technical solutions...
• Push data to the open web
• Highly granular URIs...repositories for which “the
file” is not the atomic concept
• Strong versioning and forking functionality...like any
halfway decent code repository
• Strong identity management solutions for people,
projects, organizations
• Tools for linking objects

Social solutions...
• Use the strong culture of citation in
community
• Leverage the need of researchers to
track their own data properly
• A discussion of best practice for citation,

Problems are primarily
social, not technical...
....technical solutions are
needed to make it easy

...but the first problem
is to tell people why
they should care...