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Big data ecosystems are complex data-intensive, digital–physical systems. Data-intensive ecosystems offer a number of benefits; however, they present challenges as well. One major challenge is related to the privacy and security. A number of privacy and security models, techniques and algorithms have been proposed over a period of time. The limitation is that these solutions are primarily focused on an individual or on an isolated organizational context. There is a need to study and provide complete end-to-end solutions that ensure security and privacy throughout the data lifecycle across the ecosystem beyond the boundary of an individual system or organizational context. The results of current study provide a review of the existing privacy and security challenges and solutions using the systematic literature review (SLR) approach. Based on the SLR approach, 79 applicable articles were selected and analyzed. The information from these articles was extracted to compile a catalogue of security and privacy challenges in big data ecosystems and to highlight their interdependencies. The results were categorized from theoretical viewpoint using adaptive enterprise architecture and practical viewpoint using DAMA framework as guiding lens. The findings of this research will help to identify the research gaps and draw novel research directions in the context of privacy and security in big data-intensive ecosystems.

The Retrospective Analysis of Antarctic Tracking Data (RAATD) is a Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research project led jointly by the Expert Groups on Birds and Marine Mammals and Antarctic Biodiversity Informatics, and endorsed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. RAATD consolidated tracking data for multiple species of Antarctic meso- and top-predators to identify Areas of Ecological Significance. These datasets and accompanying syntheses provide a greater understanding of fundamental ecosystem processes in the Southern Ocean, support modelling of predator distributions under future climate scenarios and create inputs that can be incorporated into decision making processes by management authorities. In this data paper, we present the compiled tracking data from research groups that have worked in the Antarctic since the 1990s. The data are publicly available through biodiversity.aq and the Ocean Biogeographic Information System. The archive includes tracking data from over 70 contributors across 12 national Antarctic programs, and includes data from 17 predator species, 4060 individual animals, and over 2.9 million observed locations.

Data ecosystems are increasingly central to organizational strategy as they promise to democratize data sharing and enhance sustainability through collaborative models. Grounded in theories of decentralized governance, we examine how these ecosystems evolve from a conceptual decentralized framework to a more centralized operational reality as they mature. Employing an exploratory case study of four data ecosystems, based on 25 interviews and archival data, we investigate the transition within data ecosystems from decentralized emergence to the governance trade-offs necessitated by their expansion and increased complexity. Our findings depict a spectrum of governance adaptations: while some ecosystems develop formal structures that lean towards centralization to facilitate scaling, others maintain their foundational decentralized approach through self-regulation and technology-driven solutions. Our results contribute to the theoretical understanding of the dynamic governance within data ecosystems, revealing the processual nuances of balancing decentralization with operational centralization. This has implications for practitioners who must design flexible governance mechanisms capable of navigating between decentralized ideals and the centralizing demands of ecosystem growth and complexity.

The neurophysiology of cells and tissues are monitored electrophysiologically and optically in diverse experiments and species, ranging from flies to humans. Understanding the brain requires integration of data across this diversity, and thus these data must be findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR). This requires a standard language for data and metadata that can coevolve with neuroscience. We describe design and implementation principles for a language for neurophysiology data. Our open-source software (Neurodata Without Borders, NWB) defines and modularizes the interdependent, yet separable, components of a data language. We demonstrate NWB’s impact through unified description of neurophysiology data across diverse modalities and species. NWB exists in an ecosystem, which includes data management, analysis, visualization, and archive tools. Thus, the NWB data language enables reproduction, interchange, and reuse of diverse neurophysiology data. More broadly, the design principles of NWB are generally applicable to enhance discovery across biology through data FAIRness. The brain is an immensely complex organ which regulates many of the behaviors that animals need to survive. To understand how the brain works, scientists monitor and record brain activity under different conditions using a variety of experimental techniques. These neurophysiological studies are often conducted on multiple types of cells in the brain as well as a variety of species, ranging from mice to flies, or even frogs and worms. Such a range of approaches provides us with highly informative, complementary ‘views’ of the brain. However, to form a complete, coherent picture of how the brain works, scientists need to be able to integrate all the data from these different experiments. For this to happen effectively, neurophysiology data need to meet certain criteria: namely, they must be findable, accessible, interoperable, and re-usable (or FAIR for short). However, the sheer diversity of neurophysiology experiments impedes the ‘FAIR’-ness of the information obtained from them. To overcome this problem, researchers need a standardized way to communicate their experiments and share their results – in other words, a ‘standard language’ to describe neurophysiology data. Rübel, Tritt, Ly, Dichter, Ghosh et al. therefore set out to create such a language that was not only FAIR, but could also co-evolve with neurophysiology research. First, they produced a computer software program (called Neurodata Without Borders, or NWB for short) which generated and defined the different components of the new standard language. Then, other tools for data management were created to expand the NWB platform using the standardized language. This included data analysis and visualization methods, as well as an ‘archive’ to store and access data. Testing the new language and associated tools showed that they indeed allowed researchers to access, analyze, and share information from many different types of experiments, in organisms ranging from flies to humans. The NWB software is open-source, meaning that anyone can obtain a copy and make changes to it. Thus, NWB and its associated resources provide the basis for a collaborative, community-based system for sharing neurophysiology data. Rübel et al. hope that NWB will inspire similar developments across other fields of biology that share similar levels of complexity with neurophysiology.

PurposeTo improve supply chain performance, companies are now exploring new pathways including industry-wide data sharing initiatives along complex supply chains. The purpose of this paper is to stimulate research in this field by describing the benefits, obstacles and the governance required for supply chain data sharing initiatives.Design/methodology/approachBased on publicly available information complemented by interviews with practitioners, the authors describe how companies are establishing ambitious data sharing infrastructure and initiatives along their supply chains.FindingsThe authors describe how data sharing along supply chains is becoming increasingly important for many companies and how the automotive sector is working towards establishing a digital infrastructure for data sharing that could support a wide range of use cases. The article emphasises the importance of studying the governance of data ecosystems using new theoretical approaches. Finally, the authors suggest three areas for future research on data ecosystems, including their governance, the learning dynamics that will drive their adoption and their relationship with broader system-level changes.Originality/valueThis paper is the first, to the authors’ knowledge, that depicts how industry-wide data-sharing initiatives are expected to have an impact on supply chain performance. The authors highlight factors that affect the development and implementation of these initiatives along supply chains.

PurposeThe rising volume of open government data (OGD) contrasts with the limited acceptance and utilization of OGD among citizens. This study investigates the reasons for citizens’ not using available OGD by comparing citizens’ attitudes towards OGD with the development of OGD portals. The comparison includes four OGD utilization processes derived from the literature, namely OGD awareness, needs, access and consumption.Design/methodology/approachA case study in China has been carried out. A sociological questionnaire was designed to collect data from Chinese citizens (demand), and personal visits were carried out to collect data from OGD portals (supply).FindingsResults show that Chinese citizens have low awareness of OGD and OGD portals. Significant differences were recognized between citizens’ expectations and OGD portals development in OGD categories and features, data access services and support functions. Correlations were found between citizens’ OGD awareness, needs, access and consumption.Originality/valueBy linking the supply of OGD from the governments with each process of citizens’ OGD utilization, this paper proposes a framework for citizens’ OGD utilization lifecycle and provides a new tool to investigate reasons for citizens’ not making use of OGD.

In the modern agricultural landscape, realizing data’s full potential requires a unified infrastructure where stakeholders collaborate and share their data to gain insights and create business value. The agricultural data ecosystem (ADE) serves as a crucial socio-technical infrastructure, aggregating diverse data from various platforms and, thus, advertising sustainable agriculture and digitalization. Establishing trustworthy data sharing and exchange in agro-food value chains involves socioeconomic and technological elements addressed by the agricultural data space (ADS) and its trust principles. This paper outlines key challenges to data sharing in agro-food chains impeding ADE establishment based on the review of 27 studies in scientific literature. Challenges mainly arise from stakeholders’ mistrust in the data-sharing process, inadequate data access and use policies, and unclear data ownership agreements. In the ADE context, interoperability is a particularly challenging topic for ensuring the long-term sustainability of the system. Considering these challenges and data space principles and building blocks, we propose a set of design principles for ADS design and implementation that aim to mitigate the adverse impact of these challenges and facilitate agricultural data sharing and exchange.

Open finance initiatives are emerging worldwide, yet stakeholders are still lagging in achieving full adoption. Within the financial sector, data democratization is heralded as a novel paradigm facilitating data valorization initiatives that drive innovation and competition. However, there is a scarcity of managerial exploration of these concepts, and limited studies intersect them to uncover the necessities of an open finance ecosystem. This study, based on a systematic literature review of 97 documents from 2000 to 2023 and a qualitative survey of 207 decision-makers from financial companies, identifies the core principles of open finance, data democratization, and strategic data democratization within an open finance ecosystem. The findings produce a data democratization framework, emphasizing practical implications for various data stakeholders (regulators, traditional financial institutions, fintech startups, techfin companies, customers, technology developers, and nonfinancial third parties) and the ecosystem performance. Senior managers are provided with data democratization initiatives (processes, culture, capabilities, and governance) and collaborative strategies to enhance financial and nonfinancial performance in the short and long term within an open finance ecosystem. Policymakers could establish guidelines for data democratization to further stimulate innovation and competition. The study's novelty lies in its strategic approach to data democratization, enabling data stakeholders to develop synergies and coevolve within an innovative and competitive open finance ecosystem.

This paper studies the factors that affect the emergence of water data ecosystems using a case study as a research method. The study is based on interviews conducted with partners in a comprehensive business ecosystem focused on the development of smart water network management. Eleven representatives from six private companies, the waterworks of a city, and three organizations that provide water supply management services for municipalities were interviewed. The paper presents analysis of the interview results focusing on the interviewees’ thoughts on the state of water data systems in Finland and on the factors that affect the emergence of water data ecosystems in Finland.The interview results indicate a clear need for water data ecosystems but also obstacles preventing their emergence. Inadequate understanding on the part of customer, a lack of water data, regulations, and underdeveloped agreements were seen to hinder the development of water data solutions. In addition to ecosystem development, the emergence of water data ecosystems requires investment and the development of water data solutions, solution concepts, and demonstrations to show the value of the ecosystem. The results show that ecosystems need a clear rationale and vision, effective management of water data sharing, and mechanisms to ensure the scalability of water data ecosystems.

Central to the institutionalization of learning analytics is the need to understand and improve student learning. Frameworks guiding the implementation of learning analytics flow from and perpetuate specific understandings of learning. Crucially, they also provide insights into how learning analytics acknowledges and positions itself as entangled in institutional data ecosystems, and (increasingly) as part of a data ecology driven by a variety of data interests. The success of learning analytics should therefore be understood in terms of data flows and data interests informing the emerging and mutually constitutive interrelationships and interdependencies between different stakeholders, interests and power relations. This article analyses several selected frameworks to determine the extent to which learning analytics understands itself as a data ecosystem with dynamic interdependencies and interrelationships (human and non-human). Secondly, as learning analytics increasingly becomes part of broader data ecologies, we examine the extent to which learning analytics takes cognizance of the reality, the potential and the risks of being part of a broader data ecology. Finally, this article examines the different data interests vested in learning analytics and critically considers implications for student data sovereignty. The research found that most of the analyzed frameworks understand learning analytics as a data ecosystem, with very little evidence of a broader data ecological understanding. The vast majority of analyzed frameworks consider student data as valuable resource without considering student data ownership and their data rights for self-determination.