Provenance, End-User Trust and Reuse: An Empirical Investigation

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Can’t use the file because of accessibility barriers? Contact us with the title of the item, permanent link, and specifics of your accommodation need.

Date

2011

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

USENIX

Abstract

Provenance theorists and practitioners assume that provenance is essential for trust in and reuse of data. However, little empirical research has been conducted to more closely examine this assumption. This qualitative study explores how provenance affects end-users’ trust in and reuse of data. Toward this end, the authors conducted semi- structured interviews with 17 proteomics researchers who interact with data from ProteomeCommons.org, a large scientific data repository. Empirical findings from this study suggest that provenance does help end-users gauge the trustworthiness of data and build their confidence in reusing data. However, provenance also needs to be accompanied by other kinds of information, including: more specific data quality information, the data itself, and author reputation information. Implications of this study stress the value of end-user studies in provenance research, specifically to assess the ‘real-world’ impact of provenance encoded and communicated to end-users in systems.

Description

Keywords

Provenance, Trustworthiness, Users, Scientific Data Reuse, Proteomics Data Reuse

Citation

Donaldson, D. R., and Fear, K. (2011). Provenance, End-User Trust, and Reuse: An Empirical Investigation, Proceedings of 3rd Workshop on the Theory and Practice of Provenance (TaPP’2011) Heraklion, Crete, Greece, June 2011.

Journal

DOI

Relation

Rights

A major mission of the USENIX Association is to provide for the creation and dissemination of new knowledge. In keeping with this and as part of USENIX's open access policy, the Proceedings will be available online for registered attendees before the Symposium and for everyone starting on the opening day of the technical sessions. USENIX also allows authors to retain ownership of the copyright in their works, requesting only that USENIX be granted the right to be the first publisher of that work.

Type

Article