Bishop Hill Universities and FOI
Jan 21, 2011 Climate: Russell FOI There is an article here about the application of the Freedom of Information Act in universities. Michael Jubb, Director of the Research Information Network, discusses the lessons from Climategate and the Muir Russell report as well as looking at the ways universities would like the Act to be change.
There is discussion of extending the "Scottish exemption" to English universities. This exemption, which I'd never heard of before, would allow information to be withheld ahead of publication in a journal. I can't see anyone objecting to this. Data relating to unpublished papers would be of little interest to sceptics, since they couldn't be relied upon in the IPCC reports. That said, you would have to be sure that there was no question of withholding it further on the grounds that it was going to be used in another paper.
The other point to make is that (I think) this exemption would only apply to the FOI Act and not the Environmental Information Regulations, so would have little impact of sceptics searching for data.
Reader Comments (4)
Why should there be a different set of FOI rules for academic work?
What makes this type if information ‘special’ as opposed to information held by other public bodies?
What is it about public funded universities that means they should have less stringent FOI requirements, they other public funded organisation?
While the universities have still not woken up to the realities and requirements of FOI , this lack of will or lack of ability is no reason for them to be given access to more relaxed requirements. Indeed within Phil Jones e-mails, it can be seen that people working at universities can actively oppose any FOI requirements to the extent of detailing the information, while the very existence or not of information ,let alone its realise, is sometimes disputed by universities.
In short the fact that universities do not want comply with the FOI, is not a reason for the rules govern FOI to be changed to universities favour. Partly as they have already shown bad faith in this area , but mostly because you do not change the law because the person breaking it thinks it’s ‘unfair’.
I think these are the relevant pieces of legislation: FOIA Scotland versus FOIA.
Both versions of FOIA exempt information that is due to be published. The Scottish version is more specific about time frames and consequently adds a part about information held relating to ongoing research. The Scottish exemption also allows for data to be withheld even if you are publishing. To me, a man on the Clapham omnibus, that isn't good science.
In these more enlightened times, if you're publishing papers you'll be publishing the data too, right?
"you would have to be sure that there was no question of withholding it further on the grounds that it was going to be used in another paper."
Given the amount of copy and pasting going on, that would be most likely.
Perhaps the universities can get the Royal Exception as well Royal FOIA