Abstract
Poor provision of information and communication technologies in low/middle-income countries represents a concern for promoting open data. This is often framed as a ‘digital divide’ and addressed through initiatives that increase the availability of information and communication technologies to researchers based in low-resourced environments, as well as the amount of resources freely accessible online. Using qualitative empirical data from a study of lab-based research in Africa we highlight the limitations of this framing and emphasize the range of additional factors necessary to effectively utilize data available online. We adapt Sen’s ‘capabilities approach’ to highlight the distinction between simply making resources available, and fostering researchers’ ability to use them. This provides an alternative orientation that highlights the persistence of deep inequalities within the seemingly egalitarian-inspired open data landscape. We propose that the extent and manner of future data sharing will hinge on the ability to respond to the heterogeneity of research environments.
Highlights
The growing interest in harnessing information and communication technology (ICT) to create new forms of data dissemination has precipitated the development of activities focused on realizing the ideals of open science (OS), and open access (OA) and open data (OD)
This is of considerable importance to future discussions on OD, especially when one considers that the vast majority of academic researchers in low/middle-income countries (LMICs) are not affiliated to research consortia or large-scale collaborations, and yet a considerable number of the publications from LMICs are in conjunction with high-income countries (HICs) collaborators (UN 2015)
We have shown that the ‘digital divide’ framework, despite its usefulness in highlighting basic inequality issues in the implementation of OD mandates, is of limited use when attempting to tackle those issues
Summary
The growing interest in harnessing ICTs to create new forms of data dissemination has precipitated the development of activities focused on realizing the ideals of open science (OS), and open access (OA) and open data (OD). Much of the written evidence on laboratory conditions in LMICs comes from the numerous research consortia or large-scale collaborations that include both HICs and LMICs, and are highly influential in the developing world (Malaria Genomic Epidemiology Network 2008; Tierney et al.2013; Tindana et al 2014) This literature provides excellent insights into collaborative activities and formats across countries. Our study aims to tell the story of researchers based in laboratories that are not part of international consortia and who work under low-resourced conditions This is of considerable importance to future discussions on OD, especially when one considers that the vast majority of academic researchers in LMICs are not affiliated to research consortia or large-scale collaborations, and yet a considerable number of the publications from LMICs are in conjunction with HIC collaborators (UN 2015). We question what is necessary to gauge the realization of the global equity aspirations of the OS movement as it relates to OD, and how the current discourse may be modified in order to take these issues into account
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