Interest Group on Data Economics (DE) Charter

Name of Proposed Interest Group: Data Properties as Economic Goods (Data Economics)

Introduction (A brief articulation of what issues the IG will address, how this IG is aligned with the RDA mission, and how this IG would be a value-added contribution to the RDA community):

The fact that data has a value is commonly recognised. However, data value is different from those associated with the consumable goods. Supporting this area of inquiry and development, there are a number of initiatives to create data markets and data exchange services.

As part of this trend, existing business models of paid or commercial data(sets) services such as archives are based rather on services subscription fee. Quality of datasets  in many cases  is assessed by independent certification body or based on peer review by expert. This type of model is useful for specific use cases, although this does not provide a consistent model to make data an economic goods and enable data commoditisation.  Another key factor is growing interest in making the best use of research data resulted in formulation of the FAIR (Findable – Accessible – Interoperable – Reusable) data principles, which are widely supported by industry and business.

However, emerging data driven technologies and economy facilitate interest to making data a new economic value (data commoditisation) and consequently identification of the new properties of data as economic goods. The following properties leverage the FAIR data properties and are defined as STREAM for industrial and commoditised data

[S] Sovereign

[T] Trusted

[R] Reusable

[E] Exchangeable

[A] Actionable

[M] Measurable

Other properties to be considered and necessary for defining workable business and operational models: nonrival nature of data, data ownership, data quality, measurable use of data, privacy, integrity, and provenance.

User scenario(s) or use case(s) the IG wishes to address (what triggered the desire for this IG in the first place):

The proposed Interest Group is a direct and well supported outcome of the BoF on Data as economic goods that took place at the RDA 12 Plenary on 5-8 Nov 2018 in Gaborone.  The BoF drew 29  participants from 13 countries, and addressed and included four presentations. The agenda and notes are found at: https://www.rd-alliance.org/bof-data-properties-economic-goods-rda-12th-...

Following the presentation, a thoughtful and energetic discussion took place, and the need for continued discussion was explicit, leading to the unanimously supported recommendation to create corresponding IG within the RDA community. The importance of addressing data economics and data market issues is supported by numerous national and international projects and initiatives in Europe (such as MATES project, DL4LD project, International Data Space Association (IDSA), others). Data Markets is also a topic of the ICT139(a) call in Horizon2020 work programme for 2019-2020. Data markets is an important component of the ongoing industry digitalisation.

Creating consistent and workable models for data exchange and commoditisation is critical to facilitating research data usage, creation of new value added data driven services bringing additional resources to research organisations. Consistent data pricing and data markets models are equally important for government funded and sponsored research, open data and governmental data. A number of examples from industry demonstrate practical interest to facilitate and obtain value from data exchange, interoperability, and adopting common architectures for data markets. This includes but not limited to creating IDSA Architecture (https://www.internationaldataspaces.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/InternationalDataSpacesAssociation_ReferenzArchitecture2.0.pdf), recent Open Data Initiative (ODI) by Microsoft and associates SAP and Abode, and others.  

These developments, and the mission and goals of the RDA lend support and underscore the need for an interest group on Data Economics, and inter-related topics of data properties, the association between data and economic goods, data markets and other topics. An interest group will provide an important open forum for further exploration and open discussion, and allow for important connections to be made to data economies as they intersect with other RDA IGs and WGs.

Objectives (A specific set of focus areas for discussion, including use cases that pointed to the need for the IG in the first place.   Articulate how this group is different from other current activities inside or outside of RDA.):

The objective of this IG is the exchange of information about existing developments and initiatives and promotion of best practices in data markets and data marketplace operation.

1. Provide and open forum and venue for gathering individuals interested in discussing and defining set of properties that are related to data as economic goods
2. Compile initial agreed set of data properties and validate currently denoted STREAM properties
3. Identify key actions to further research topics and coordination actions
4. Identify set of documents to be produced by IG, in particular STREAM-like properties definition and overview of business models for research data and commoditised data trading and exchange
5. Provide input to other RDA WGs and IGs, as well as to other associations and standardisation bodies such as BDVA, IDSA, NIST, ISO and IEEE, using existing RDA channels or establishing new channels.

Participation (Address which communities will be involved, what skills or knowledge should they have, and how will you engage these communities.  Also address how this group proposes to coordinate its activity with relevant related groups.):

IG members will provide an initial community to start working on the documents.

Interaction with other IG and WG is expected, external experts and contributors will be invited. Interaction with external organisations is expected: NIST, IEEE, International Data Space Association.

Outcomes (Discuss what the IG intends to accomplish.  Include examples of WG topics or supporting IG-level outputs that might lead to WGs later on.):

At the initial stage of 1-1.5 year, the IG plans to produce an information document(s) providing overview of existing approaches and concept related to data economic values, data pricing, economical models related to several use cases identified by RDA community on using and managing research data.

Other general outcomes may include:

• Increased use and sharing data; in particular between research community and industry
• Establishing compatible metadata and measurable data properties.
• Bringing economic value to research based on better defined cooperation with industry

The IG activity will be driven by community and other expected outcomes will address community needs and requests. In particular, he IG will make the case for creating a taxonomy of the data properties as economic good that be a spin off Working Group.

Mechanism (Describe how often your group will meet and how will you maintain momentum between Plenaries.):

The IG will meet at the RDA Plenaries, will manage discussion on the list, and establish regular call (expected monthly) between plenaries. Activity between plenaries will be facilitated by working of the IG outcomes and documents.

Timeline (Describe draft milestones and goals for the first 12 months):

The suggested timeline is presented in the table below

Potential Group Members (Include proposed chairs/initial leadership and all members who have expressed interest):

Additionally, 27 attendees of the BoF on Data Economics will be added when the meeting sign-in sheet will be decoded