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Addressing data property rights concerns and providing incentives for collaborative data pooling: the West African Vegetation Database approach
Author(s) -
Janßen Thomas,
Schmidt Marco,
Dressler Stefan,
Hahn Karen,
Hien Mipro,
Konaté Souleymane,
Lykke Anne Mette,
Mahamane Ali,
Sambou Bienvenu,
Sinsin Brice,
Thiombiano Adjima,
Wittig Rüdiger,
Zizka Georg
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of vegetation science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.1
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1654-1103
pISSN - 1100-9233
DOI - 10.1111/j.1654-1103.2011.01271.x
Subject(s) - vegetation (pathology) , incentive , database , property rights , data sharing , intellectual property , scale (ratio) , environmental resource management , business , geography , political science , computer science , environmental science , economics , law , cartography , medicine , alternative medicine , pathology , microeconomics
Question: How can quantitative data from vegetation surveys best be assembled in a large regional vegetation database? What effects have intellectual property rights concerns of individual and institutional data holders on data contribution and how can incentives to contribute data be generated? Location: West Africa, with discussion of a possible approach to dealing with property rights concerns being of wider interest. Methods: The management of data property rights in the West African Vegetation Database was developed based on consultations with institutions and scientists in five West African countries over 2 years. It was agreed in two successive Memoranda of Understanding. Results: The West African Vegetation Database addresses property rights concerns by leaving the control over data access with the data owners, and provides incentives to build a distributed research community by fostering data sharing. Conclusion: We present a potential solution to the problem of intellectual property rights issues being an impediment to data sharing and the compilation of large regional vegetation databases. The data property rights management approach implemented in the West African Vegetation Database provided incentives for the contribution of recently acquired and unpublished data. Numerous phytosociological and dendrometric vegetation surveys have been made available by institutions and individual researchers for regional‐scale analyses. The structures developed may serve as a model for regional‐scale vegetation databases in collaborative settings involving multiple data owners.