Research Articles
2024
Reconciling Data Actionability and Accountability in Global Health Research
All too often, the requirements for actionability and accountability of data infrastructures are conceptualised as incompatible and leading to a trade-off situation where increasing one will unavoidably decrease the other. Through a comparative analysis of two data infrastructures used to share genomic data about the SARS-COV-2 virus, we argue that making data actionable for knowledge development involves a commitment to ensuring that the data in question are representative of the phenomena being studied and accountable to data subjects and users. This in turn presupposes that: (1) enough data are contributed by a wide and diverse set of relevant sources; (2) mechanisms of feedback and inclusion are set up to ensure that data contributors can participate data governance and interpretation, thereby helping to adequately contextualise data; and (3) accountability extends to the ways in which data infrastructures are run, financed and positioned vis-à-vis the communities they are meant to serve. Such a model of data sharing can only work on the understanding that data do not need to be easily accessible to be actionable; rather, actionability depends on the responsiveness and accountability of data infrastructures, and the efforts invested in ensuring open communication among contributors.
Sheehan, Nathanael & Leonelli, Sabina, Reconciling Data Actionability and Accountability in Global Health Research.
Unrestricted Versus Regulated Open Data Governance: A Bibliometric Comparison of SARS-CoV-2 Nucleotide Sequence Databases
Two distinct modes of data governance have emerged in accessing and reusing viral data pertaining to COVID-19: an unrestricted model, espoused by data repositories part of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration and a regulated model promoted by the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza data. In this paper, we focus on publications mentioning either infrastructure in the period between January 2020 and January 2023, thus capturing a period of acute response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a variety of bibliometric and network science methods, we compare the extent to which either data infrastructure facilitated collaboration from different countries around the globe to understand how data reuse can enhance forms of diversity between institutions, countries, and funding groups. Our findings reveal disparities in representation and usage between the two data infrastructures. We conclude that both approaches offer useful lessons, with the unrestricted model providing insights into complex data linkage and the regulated model demonstrating the importance of global representation.
Sheehan, N., Botta, F. and Leonelli, S. (2024) ‘Unrestricted Versus Regulated Open Data Governance: A Bibliometric Comparison of SARS-CoV-2 Nucleotide Sequence Databases’, Data Science Journal, 23(1), p. 29.
2022
Active Travel Oriented Development: Assessing the suitability of sites for new homes
The location of new housing developments, and the provision of safe space for walking and cycling to key destinations around them, have major and long lasting impacts on travel behaviour, health, and environmental outcomes. Transit Oriented Development (TOD) is a well-recognised concept in urban planning, but systematic evidence is often lacking on the likely ‘active travel performance’ of new developments, making it hard for the planning process to support sustainable transport objectives. This paper articulates the concept of ‘Active Travel Oriented Development’ (ATOD) and describes methods for operationalising it. We demonstrate the use of a set of simple metrics to assess the active travel performance of new and proposed development sites. ATOD has the benefits of building on the established concept of TOD and being easy to assess. We conclude that ATOD, and tools for measuring it, are needed to ensure that transport and development policies work in harmony.
Talbot, J., Lucas-Smith, M., Speakman, A., Streb, M., Nuttall, S., Carlino, D., Johansson, P., Sheehan, N., Groot, N., & Lovelace, R. (2022). Active Travel Oriented Development: Assessing the suitability of sites for new homes. European Journal of Transport and Infrastructure Research, 22(4), 51–72. https://doi.org/10.18757/ejtir.2022.22.4.6015