Citation[]
National Science Board, Long-Lived Digital Data Collections: Enabling Research and Education in the 21st Century (Sept. 2005) (full-text).
Overview[]
This report, prepared by the U.S. National Science Board (NSB), provides the findings and recommendations arising from an analysis of the [[policy] issues relevant to long-lived digital data collections. The primary purpose of this report was to frame the issues and to begin a broad discourse on the current National Science Foundation (NSF) policies that lead to NSF funding of a large number of data collections with an indeterminate lifetime and to ask what deliberate strategies will best serve the multiple research and education communities.
The Board recognized the growing importance of digital data collections for research and education, their potential for broadening participation in research at all levels, the ever increasing NSF investment in creating and maintaining the collections, and the rapid multiplication of collections with a potential for decades of curation.
In response, the Board formed the Long-lived Data Collections Task Force. The Board and the task force undertook an analysis of the policy issues relevant to long-lived digital data collections. This report provides the findings and recommendations arising from that analysis.