China to Develop Infrastructure for Sharing Scientific Data
25 Jul 2006
The Chinese Academy of Sciences, composed of more than 100 scientific research institutes and over 58,000 staff, is planning a large-scale “e-Science” initiative to allow researchers to share their data and pool their resources. The Chinese government, which might invest up to 500 million yuan (U.S. $62.5 million) in this project, anticipates that the e-Science project will promote greater scientific collaboration and the exchange of ideas between researchers.
The project will build a cyber-infrastructure through which data and computing tools for data analysis will be made freely available for sharing within the Academy as well as with scientists outside of it, and to the public. The project is intended to permit more efficient use of data that is sometimes collected at a great expense, and thus facilitate greater progress in the work of scientists and researchers.
However, developing the technological infrastructure for this project might not be sufficient to achieve the goals of sharing and collaboration between researchers. Liu Mian, of the University of Missouri, expressed the need for the Chinese government to ensure sharing by requiring researchers to submit their data to public databases. Another important aspect of the project—separate from the technological infrastructure—is the need for stringent quality control of data before it becomes publicly accessible. Without quality control, errors in data for many different scientific projects can undermine the goals of those projects.
Source:
China plans massive data sharing project
Zi Xun.
SciDev.net. 24 July 2006.
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