Open data: Accountability and transparency
Open accessAbstract
The movements by national governments, funding agencies, universities, and research communities toward “open data” face many difficult challenges. In high-level visions of open data, researchers’ data and metadata practices are expected to be robust and structured. The integration of the internet into scientific institutions amplifies these expectations. When examined critically, however, the data and metadata practices of scholarly researchers often appear incomplete or deficient. The concepts of “accountability” and “transparency” provide insight in understanding these perceived gaps. Researchers’ primary accountabilities are related to meeting the expectations of research competency, not to external standards of data deposition or metadata creation. Likewise, making data open in a transparent way can involve a significant investment of time and resources with no obvious benefits. This paper uses differing notions of accountability and transparency to conceptualize “open data” as the result of ongoing achievements, not one-time acts.
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The risks with AI systems mainly come from data accountability and algorithm accountability.
“The risks with AI systems mainly come from data accountability [24,59] and algorithm accountability [60][61][62].”
From AI Fairness in Data Management and Analytics: A Review on Challenges, Methodologies and Applications (2023) · cites this paper as [59]
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AI Fairness in Data Management and Analytics: A Review on Challenges, Methodologies and Applications
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- Authors
- Mayernik, M. S.
- Affiliations
- NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (US)
- Corresponding author
- Mayernik, Matthew S
- ORCID
- Mayernik, Matthew S
- Venue
- Big Data & Society
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2017-07-04
- Volume
- 4
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 205395171771885
- ISSN
- 2053-9517 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2729600796
- Cited by
- 70
- References
- 28
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 1
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Big Data & Society (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- National Center for Atmospheric Research
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Research Data Management Practices
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Data Analysis and Archiving
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Academic Publishing and Open Access
- Keywords
- open data, accountability, transparency, research data management, metadata practices, academic research, data sharing, research skills
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