Open access to geophysical data sets requires community responsibility

In our increasingly digital age, access to data is becoming faster and easier. This has many positive consequences for scientific discovery, but it also presents challenges for protecting the data collectors and ensuring proper citation (e.g., M. A. Parsons et al., Eos, 91(34), 297, doi:10.1029/ 2010EO340001). These issues have been concerns of UNAVCO's staff and those involved in the governance of UNAVCO as they crafted a new open data policy that became effective on 2 March 2012. UNAVCO is a nonprofit consortium of 177 university and research institutions from around the world. Founded in 1984 as the University Navstar Consortium and formally incorporated in 2001 as UNAVCO, Inc., the organization facilitates the collection and archiving of geodetic data (http://www.unavco.org).