How to trust the re-use of data

Abstract

Research in natural sciences and life sciences involve carrying out experiments to collect data as well as carrying out analysis to interpret the data. Increasingly data is being made available to other scientists in big databases. The scientific process builds on the idea that research results can be independently validated by other researchers. However, the concern about the correct re-use of data is also increasing. As illustrated by a currently evolving case of alleged scientific mispractice there is a need to support a reliable re-use of data. To solve this challenge we introduce an enriched coordination language based on Klaim, that can model the coordination of the re-use of data in the research community. We define the formal semantics of our language and develop a static analysis that can be used to check whether we have a trustable re-use of data.