The second major skills gap relates to the data management and data handling. We are at the beginning of a major reconceptualisation in the curation and the ‘processing’ of these types of data source for reuse. There has been little work in the academic sector about maximising the reuse value of these types of data.
The third and fourth skills gaps surround the ethical and legal issues around these data. aware of the complex (and potentially unresolvable within existing privacy paradigms) issues. (See paragraph 16 below.)
Many of the risks surrounding the use of these data can be mitigated by training researchers in best practices in handling and using these types of ata. There are ethical and ‘secure’ training courses in france rcs data the handling and analysis of personal data, and these are generally harmonised across multiple data owners, e.g., the Office for National Statistics, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the Administrative Data Research Network and ESRC’s UK Data Service. Further work is required on re-examining ethical and legal frameworks for the reuse of these types of data which are based on personal information.
Openness and transparency in the construction of “big data” needs to be driven by government initiatives. It is no use in simply publishing vast quantities of open data, unless there is sufficient background information to be able to use them properly.