Scientific Stewardship in the Open Data and Big Data Era - Roles and Responsibilities of Stewards and Other Major Product Stakeholders.

Ensuring and improving quality and usability is an important part of scientific stewardship of digital environmental data products, but the roles of the responsible parties — those who manage quality and usability — have been evolving over time and have not always been clearly defined. Recognizing that in the Open Data and Big Data era, effective long-term scientific stewardship of data products requires an integrated and coordinated team effort of experts in multiple knowledge domains — data management, science, and technology — we introduce the following stewardship roles for each of these domains: data steward, scientific steward, and technology steward. This article defines their roles and high-level responsibilities as well as the responsibilities of other major product stakeholders, including data originators and distributors. Defining roles and formalizing responsibilities will facilitate the process of curating and communicating quality information to users. Clearly defined roles will allow effective cross-disciplinary communication and better resource allocation for data stewardship, supporting organizations in meeting the challenges of stewarding digital environmental data products in the Open Data and Big Data era.