>Scientists need to be more open among themselves and with the public and media
At least in the physical sciences we couldn't be more open. We even have to schmooze 'contacts' in the press to get our results mentioned. We are total publicity whores.
>Greater recognition needs to be given to the value of data gathering, analysis and communication
By whom? I think most experimental scientists are pretty convinced of the value of gathering data!
>Common standards for sharing information are required to make it widely usable
Oh dear, I see another huge government plan for another over complex family of data formats. HDF meets the semantic web. With lots of competing Eu, NATO, International committees all meeting in nice places for years withotu producing anything that is usable
>Publishing data in a reusable form to support findings must be mandatory
Fine but probably pointless. The raw data is available, it's the data processing that is the argument.
>More experts in managing and supporting the use of digital data are required
Cut researchers, hire more "digital media interface facilitators"!
>New software tools need to be developed to analyse the growing amount of data being gathered
We do - we spend most of our time writing < bleep >ing software. The average experimental physicist writes more lines of < bleep >ing code than the average programmer. And thanks to the unique way in which UK academia is funded we did it all with open source software. If we had had decent funding in the 90s we might have used IDL, mathematica, Matlab and tied everything up in proprietry formats - but we didn't so we didn't
NEWS guys - the problem isn't the data - it's the papers. If I want the next job I need publications. they have to be in proper journals to count. The journals not only charge money, they screw us over - you want to buy the Astrophysical Journal at a cost of approx 1 staff member/year? Then you also have to subscribe to the Ecuadorian journal of fish spotting. Want online access, fine, but you still have to pay page charges to publish in it and still pay extra for color 'pages'
If the Royal Society had any purpose - beyond big lunches - it would be to do what it originally did 400 years ago. It should run it's own reputable FREE online journal with proper referees, a citations score where I could publish results and get a job. Without having to do all the staged press releases, minimal publishable unit, getting a story on the news, interesting Discovery channel - and all the other chicanery I had to do!