A Workshop organised by The Biotechnology Information Strategic Forum, with support from DGXII of the Commission of the European Communities, and held at CAB International, Wallingford, Oxon, UK, October 1996
Setting the Scene -- Jack Franklin
The explosive entry of the Internet and its related technologies onto the world's information stage has opened many new possibilities for the information industry; and alerted the user and the publisher to a series of problems and even dangers. Discussions with users and producers in the early part of 1996 pointed to a number of related topics along the "Access, Storage, Validation and Security" route as being pressing challenges in this changing world. The need to mix information sources, public and private, the wish to re-use information, and the absolute need to apply strict security codes to a new medium, were clearly worrying many users who seemed to feel that the STM publishers were, and are, using the economic templates created for the printed product for the electronic future.
Obviously new economic and technical plans and models, are needed, to serve this changing field and many are indeed appearing. However, these need to be set against the needs of the user who no longer sees information solely as a product but increasingly as part of the research and business process. Information and data have an intrinsic, often huge, economic value. Now that such data has to be handled in electronic forms, how secure is it? Should we send it over the "net"? What laws are relevant? Can a company re-use information it originally produced but then allowed to be "published" in a journal? Who owned the original results anyway?
It is perhaps ironic that the very technical advances we all welcome are presently testing the traditional legal/usage structures the STM field relies upon. Biotechnology is at the forefront of these changes and challenges, due to its reliance upon information and its need to protect the data, the software and the whole infrastructure involved in turning data into meaningful R&D and then commercial products.
But any anxiety about losing information or losing one's control over it, is not confined to the business place. Increasingly, academic scientists are anxiously looking to save and store and manipulate their own data in a manner that keeps it safe from prying eyes (and programs). In fact, everyone wants the same degree of privacy that the old notebook under lock and key provided; private until the content is "protected enough" to go public.