Abstract
The amount of data generated by physics experiments is increasing year by year, and there are growing calls for the data to be open. Sharing data means that the analysis can be done by researchers who were not involved in the original experiment, and can lead to additional insights. However, the practicalities of data sharing vary widely between disciplines, which have diverse needs and face different challenges. In this Viewpoint, scientists from seven multi-user facilities discuss the status of data sharing in their communities.
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Sophia Chen is a researcher at the ELI-NP facility in Romania and also CEO of LightStreamLabs LLC, which develops high-intensity laser and X-ray free-electron laser experimental platforms. She holds a PhD in applied physics from the University of California, San Diego.
Nick Hauser is the leader of the Computing and Electronics group at the Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering. He has been working with eResearch community in Australia for over 15 years and promoted data management and data policy related to large user facilities at conferences and through committees. He holds a PhD in physics from the University of Technology, Sydney.
James Hester is a powder diffraction instrument scientist at the Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering at ANSTO, and is the current chair of the International Union of Crystallography Committee for the Maintenance of the CIF Standard. He holds a PhD in physics from the University of Western Australia.
Jonah Kanner is a senior scientist at LIGO Laboratory, Caltech. He has been working on LIGO for 15 years and has contributed to a wide range of gravitational-wave research. He is currently supporting open science with LIGO, Virgo and KAGRA as the director of the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center.
Kati Lassila-Perini is a research scientist at the Helsinki Institute of Physics, Finland, with a PhD in experimental particle physics from ETH Zurich, Switzerland. She leads the Open Data effort of the CMS experiment at CERN and has managed the release of over 3 PB of research-quality data into the public domain since 2014. Her top interest is the reusability of these data.
Andrea Lausi is the scientific director at the Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East (SESAME). He has been in charge of several hard X-ray beamlines and project at the Italian facility Elettra. From 2017 to 2020, when he joined SESAME, he was also the coordinator of all Elettra’s communication activities.
Charles Simon is a solid-state physicist, specializing in 2D, superconducting, and colossal magnetoresistive materials. After graduating in Paris (ENS), he moved to Caen (CRISMAT) and then to Grenoble (ILL and LNCMI, one of the pillars of the European Magnetic Field Laboratory).
Jon Taylor is the programme manager for neutron data and computing for the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) and Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He has 26 years’ experience of performing scientific investigations using neutron and light-source research infrastructures. He is an advocate for best practice in research data management and FAIR data. In the past, he has been actively involved with the European Open Science Cloud project and led the Data Management and Software Centre for the European Spallation Source.
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Chen, S., Hauser, N., Hester, J. et al. Opportunities and challenges in data sharing at multi-user facilities. Nat Rev Phys 5, 83–86 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-022-00546-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42254-022-00546-z
