Continuing this week with macro and micro impacts I spent some time with literature from cultural impact studies. Museums have done a lot of work looking at audience for digital resources, and the benefits of the many digitization projects that they have undertaken. There is a lot here that can be skimmed, in the context of looking at scientific data repositories, but there are some good framing ideas as well.
One of the most comprehensive studies is Simon Tanner’s Balanced Value Impact Model. He identifies four perspectives to which I’ve added a fifth, scientific impact.
- Social and Audience Impacts.
- Economic Impacts
- Innovation Impacts: one of the key indicators we’re trying to capture.
- Internal process Impacts
- Scientific Impact
There’s much here that we’ve already touch on. How is DataONE changing behaviors? Is it saving researchers time in managing data, and allowing for reproducible studies? Can we see research that would otherwise not be possible? Is it supporting the scientific process by providing public trust and reproducible science?
I’m still thinking about how to measure the internal process impacts, and it is tied into thinking about the DataONE community. DataONE’s purpose is to support a framework for providing open Earth observational data. In doing so it has bought together a large number of people to solve issues in sharing and managing data and communicating the importance of open data. It is useful to consider the impact on people connected to the project through the cross-fertilization of ideas bought about by DataONE’s existence, and the enhanced skill sets of those associated with the project.
The data life cycle diagram has been worked on as well – all coming together for the final week!
Tanner, S. (2012) Measuring the Impact of Digital Resources: The Balanced Value Impact Model. King’s College London, October 2012. Available at: http://www.kdcs.kcl.ac.uk/innovation/impact.html