Ecology teacher George H. La Rois data– gathered over 35 years of studying North American boreal forests and stored in note pads, slides, and cd-roms– are now preserved by the Living Data Project.THE LIVING DATA PROJECTThe Living Data Project, which got its financing from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), aims to address both the instant problem of data loss and the underlying cultural causes. “Data rescue is an excellent principle,” states Roche, “but preferably what we want to do is get rid of information rescue. It would be a lot less work for people if they thought of data management and sharing from the really onset of a job, so that data are not at danger of being lost.”
A five-year task that started in 2012 to recover the initial information turned up just 30 percent– the rest were never digitized, never shared, or kept in a format unattainable to outdoors scientists. Ecology teacher George H. La Rois data– collected over 35 years of studying North American boreal forests and stored in slides, cd-roms, and note pads– are now maintained by the Living Data Project.THE LIVING DATA PROJECTThe Living Data Project, which got its financing from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), aims to deal with both the immediate issue of data loss and the underlying cultural causes. The project trains graduate students on data management, then matches them with information owners such as research study organizations or retiring academics. “Data rescue is a terrific idea,” states Roche, “but preferably what we want to do is get rid of data rescue. It would be a lot less work for people if they believed of data management and sharing from the extremely onset of a project, so that information are not at threat of being lost.”
