Nathanael Sheehan

This paper explores how data formats shape the possibilities for participation in Open Research Data (ORD) infrastructures. In doing so, this paper introduces the concept of Participatory Informational Format Exclusion (PIFE) to capture the exclusion of epistemic agents from contributing to global scientific systems due to the misalignment of their data formats with infrastructural norms. Drawing on a single ethnographic episode, I show that format exclusion is not a technical problem but a structural misalignment between ORD infrastructure’s embedded conception of what data are and the epistemic tradition within which the agent works. The paper develops PIFE through four analytical properties and considers its implications for debates about openness and inequity in ORD infrastructure’s.

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.