Orateur
Description
In 2001, the first detectors of what would become the Pierre Auger Observatory recorded their first cosmic-ray events in the Pampa Amarilla, Argentina. Over the following 25 years, the Observatory has continuously evolved in its instrumentation, analysis methods, scientific results, and scope. The Collaboration's mindset has evolved too, embracing new scientific perspectives and, more recently, the growing importance of open science and open data.
The principle of making data publicly available was already included in the founding documents of the Collaboration and formalised in a data-release policy in 2006. This led to the first public release of 1% of the cosmic-ray data in 2007, primarily intended for dissemination and educational purposes. Yet it took another 14 years before a more substantial release (10%), designed to enable independent scientific analyses, became a reality in 2021.
In this presentation, I will retrace this evolution, discussing not only the technical challenges of making Auger data accessible and usable outside the Collaboration, but also the cultural obstacles that delayed their release. I will illustrate how the experience gained has progressively changed the Collaboration's attitude towards data openness, paving the way for the forthcoming 30% release and broader access to Auger data through the European ACME initiative.
Rather than presenting Open Data as a succession of increasingly large releases, I will describe an evolving process of learning, adaptation, and changing perspectives within a large scientific collaboration, including the lessons drawn from the scientific use of the publicly released data.