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Re: [dddwg] Please comment on the attached for ICSTI's InsightsSeries

Colin and others,

I am a suitable contact for CHESS, and I can respond immediately to a query 
about archiving raw data. We currently do not archive any user data beyond a 
year at most, and this is only to cover the cases where a user has neglected to 
copy data onto their system, or has had a disk failure and lost it - things like 
that. We consider that the users' data belong to them and are their responsibility.

If we were to archive all data, it would require considerable investment in 
hardware, software, and procedures, and I would anticipate resistance from 
users. Some are quite paranoid about the chance of their competitors seeing 
their data. Also, many of the data sets are currently identified as something 
like "Joe's crystals, set 1". Presumably for an archive to be useful, we would 
want to know what the crystals actually were, so users would have to provide 
more information about them, which would be a nuisance (and sometimes they are 
just shooting crystals sent along by the colleague down the hall and don't 
actually know what they are).

I realize that James Holton has a system for keeping everything, so it's 
possible, but it's certainly not trivial.

Marian Szebenyi
MacCHESS

colin.nave@diamond.ac.uk wrote:
> Dear John, Tom and Brian and others
>
> Just had a quick look at this and, irrespective of whether it is
> suitable for ICSTI (which it should be), it is a very nice account of
> the issues and a valuable document in its own right.
>
> For the “raw” images, the question is raised regarding who will fund and
> maintain any archive, with the suggestion
>
> “Costs could be minimised by preserving each raw diffraction data set at
> the local centre (synchrotron facility, neutron research centre or
> university) thus avoiding quite large network file-transfer costs.”
>
> Essentially this is putting the main burden for data deposition on the
> facilities used to generate the data and it is not at all clear whether
> they will be able to do this. I think we need to find out.
>
> The attached gives a list of synchrotrons which I believe are active in
> producing results from macromolecular crystallography. I am happy to
> initiate a survey of these but will need help for contacts, particularly
> for the synchrotrons in the USA which seem to have lots of autonomous
> groups, each responsible for an instrument. I don’t think we can be
> complete with this but it would be good to be representative.
>
> I believe the main driving force for data deposition is macromolecular
> crystallography so this is the initial priority. It would be worth
> finding out the position of neutron sources for data archiving. I
> presume that if facilities are able to archive for MX, they will be able
> to do something similar for SAXS, fibre diffraction, chemical
> crystallography etc. Some definition of what needs to be archived for
> these techniques would be good (e.g. background subtracted data or
> otherwise for SAXS).
>
> If people think the survey would not be useful, please say so.
> Otherwise, can people please send suggestions for contacts. I will also
> circulate this to the IUCr synchrotron commission members.
>
> Best Regards
>
> Colin
>
> *From:* dddwg-bounces@iucr.org [mailto:dddwg-bounces@iucr.org] *On
> Behalf Of *John Helliwell
> *Sent:* 09 April 2012 08:22
> *To:* IUCr Working Group on Diffraction data Deposition ‎[dddwg@iucr.org]‎
> *Subject:* [dddwg] Please comment on the attached for ICSTI's Insights
> Series
>
>
> Dear Colleagues,
> Please comment on the attached which we have drafted for ICSTI's
> Insights Series.
>
> In parallel with inviting your comments we are consulting the ICSTI
> Executive Secretary (and who in turn may well consult the President of
> ICSTI) as to its suitability; the biggest challenge being the technical
> crystallographic terms for the general audience that ICSTI members cover.
>
> As a reminder recall that ICSTI (the International Council for
> Scientific and Technical Information) embraces numerous national
> information science agencies, Librarians, agencies like DataCite, the
> Research Information Network, the ALPSP and as scientist delegates:-
> from IUPAC (Dr Wendy Warr) and IUPAP (Sir Roger Elliott), besides JRH
> for IUCr.
> Current full list:-
> http://www.icsti.org/spip.php?rubrique44
>
>
> We are striving to keep to an end of April 2012 delivery of these three
> articles to ICSTI if at all possible.
> There are still some polishings on referencing style and adding a movie
> clip, perhaps most easily via a weblink, that are obviously still to be
> done.
>
> Please reply with any comments before April 19th 2012.
> Thankyou in anticipation.
>
> Best wishes and regards,
> John, Tom and Brian
>
> Prof John R Helliwell DSc FInstP CPhys FRSC CChem F Soc Biol
>
> Chair School of Chemistry, University of Manchester, Athena Swan Team.
>
> http://www.chemistry.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/athena/index.html
>
>
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