Research Data Alliance: Creating the culture and technology for an international data infrastructure

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The Research Data Alliance:Creating the culture and technology for an international data infrastructure

Mark A. ParsonsManaging DirectorRDA/United StatesRensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Tokyo, Japan14 October 2013

All of society’s grand challenges require diverse

(often large) data to to be shared and integrated

across cultures, scales, and technologies.

Research Data Alliance

VisionResearchers and innovators openly share data across technologies, disciplines, and countries to address the grand challenges of society.

MissionRDA builds the social and technical bridges that enable open sharing of data.

We need to start thinking about software in a way more like how we think about building bridges, dams, and sewers.

– Dan Bricklin, Software That Lasts 200 Yearshttp://www.bricklin.com/200yearsoftware.htm

Dynamics of InfrastructureEdwards, et al. 2007 Understanding Infrastructure: Dynamics, Tensions, and Design.

• Infrastructures become “ubiquitous, accessible, reliable, and transparent” as they mature.

• Staged evolution

• “system-building, characterized by the deliberate and successful design of technology-based services.”

• “technology transfer across domains and locations results in variations on the original design, as well as the emergence of competing systems.”

• Finally, “a process of consolidation characterized by gateways that allow dissimilar systems to be linked into networks.”

Not what, but When and Who is infrastructure?

Deliverables that make data work

“Create - Adopt - Use”• Adopted code, policy, infrastructure, standards, or best practices

that enable data sharing

• “Harvestable” efforts for which 12-18 months of work can eliminate a roadblock

• Efforts that have substantive applicability to groups within the data community, but may not apply to all

• Efforts for which working scientists and researchers can start today

RDA PrinciplesOpennessConsensus

BalanceHarmonization

Community Driven Non-profit

RDA Organizational Framework

RDA Organizational Framework

Seeking full time Secretary

General!

~900 RDA Members from 51 CountriesSeptember 2013

Academia58%

Private8%

Public Admin.11%

Other23%

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§ RDA Plenary 2 § 368 participants from 22

countries and all sectors

§ All-hands stakeholder talks and RDA working meeting

§ Data Citation Summit convened by DataCite, CODATA/ICSTI, Force11, ESIP, DCC, etc. to create a common agenda

§ ~5000 tweets over 3 days

RDA Plenary 2 -- September 16-18, Washington D.C. -- 3 days of Peace, Love and Data

Fran Berman

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§ Birds-of-a-Feather§ Linked Data§ Chemical Safety Data§ Education and Skills

Development in Data Intensive Science

§ Libraries and Research Data§ Cloud Computing and Data

Analysis Training for the Developing World

§ Working Groups§ Data Type Registries§ Metadata Standards§ Practical Policy§ Persistent Identifier Types§ Data Foundations and

Terminology§ Data Categories and Codes

§ Interest Groups§ Agricultural Data§ Big Data Analytics

§ Data Brokering§ Certification of Trusted

Repositories (joint with ICSU-WDS)

§ Long tail of Research Data§ Marine Data Harmonization§ Community Capability Model§ Data Publishing (joint with

WDS)§ Toxicogenomics

Interoperability§ Research Data Provenance§ Data Citation§ Metadata

§ Economic Models and Infrastructure for Federated Materials Data Management

§ Engagement§ Preservation e-Infrastructure§ Legal Interoperability (joint with

CODATA)

§ Global Registry of Trusted Data Repositories and Services

§ Digital Practices in History and Ethnography

§ Data Citation Harmonization Summit§ DataCite,FORCE11,

CODATA/ICSTI, ESIP, DCC, etc.

Groups that Met at the RDA Plenary

BOLD = new since last Plenary

Fran Berman

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§ Growth in number and scope of Interest Groups and Working Groups§ New: BOFs for groups as precursor to Interest

Groups§ Groups beginning to “self-monitor” to promote

concrete deliverables to be used and adopted§ Increasing interest in more interaction and

“connective tissue” between groups

§ Pressing To-Dos before Plenary 3:§ Determine the form of RDA deliverables and

outputs and what is needed in terms of an RDA archive.

§ Develop an RDA policy for IP that comes up in Interest and Working Groups

RDA Community Building Momentum

Fran Berman

Organizational Partners

• Organizational Assembly = Organizational Members and Affiliates. • Organizational Advisory Board will represent Organizational Assembly.

• Current Status:• 23 Organizations expressed interest in Membership • 6 Organizations expressed interest in Affiliation

• Next 6 months• Firm up model for Affiliates (how many, how substantive should the

interaction be? How do they differ from members? Do they?)• Complete creation of legal entity to receive subscriptions for

Organizational Members• Elect Organizational Advisory Board at Plenary 3

Organizational Partners

Member Applicants• Barcelona Supercomputing Center • European Data Infrastructure (EUDAT)• International Association of STM Publishers• New Zealand eScience Infrastructure• Washington University in St. Louis Libraries

Other interested Organizations• Australian Antarctic Data Centre• Australian National Data Service• CERN• CJSD Consulting• Columbia University Libraries/Information Services• CSC - IT Center for Science Ltd.• Digital Curation Centre• IBM• Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard • Intersect Australia Limited• Library at American University

• Microsoft• Oracle• Purdue University Libraries• STFC - Science & Technology Facilities Council• Corporation for National Research Initiatives

(CNRI)• Terrestrial Ecosystems Research Network• University of Michigan Libraries

Interested Affiliates• Committee on Data for Science and Technology

(CODATA)• Connecting Research and Researchers (ORCID) • DataCite• International Oceanographic Data and Information

Exchange (IODE)• Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources

Coalition (SPARC)• World Data System (WDS)

Fran Berman

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§ Council:§ Patrick Cocquet (France)§ Doris Wedlich (Germany)§ Kaye Raseroka (Botswana)§ Tony Hey (US)§ Ross Wilkinson (AU)§ John Wood (UK), co-Chair§ Fran Berman (US), co-Chair

• Organizational Assembly§ Juan Bicarregui, co-Chair§ Leif Laaksonen, co-Chair

§ Technical Advisory Board§ Peter Wittenburg§ Francoise Genova

§ Andrew Treloar§ Bill Michener§ Beth Plale, Chair§ 6 new TAB members to be elected

this month (14 candidates)§ 12th TAB member to be appointed by

Council (for balance)

New RDA Leadership since Plenary 1

• The group of government and non-profit science funding organizations that support the data and science communities to participate in RDA activities:

• US Government (NSF and NIST)• European Commission• Australian Government

• Allows agencies the opportunity to share funding program plans that support data exchange, interoperability, and data infrastructures across the globe, and thereby amplify their impact.

• Related to but distinct from RDA. A parallel organization.

• RDAC members directly or indirectly provide funding to

• support at least 1 full-time equivalent person to work for the RDA Secretariat.• support Plenary events and the Secretary-General position.• support individual researchers and data scientists to participate in RDA.

RDA Colloquium—RDAC

Regional RDAs

• RDA/United States, Australian National Data Service, RDA/Europe,

• Implement RDA deliverables locally and enhance adoption.

• Ensure regional or national issues are addressed globally.

• Support plenaries and support attendance at plenaries.

Get involved!

• Join RDA as an individual member supporting our principles at http://rd-alliance.org

• Join as an Organizational Member (nominal fee) or an Organizational Affiliate (jointly sponsored efforts).

• Initiate or join an Interest Group

• Propose or join a Working Group

• Attend the RDA Plenaries

• Join RDAC as an Agency Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.

—Henry Ford

Next Plenary:Dublin Ireland

26-28 March 2014hosted by Australia and Ireland

Plenary 4 will be in the Netherlands

fall 2014

Info:[email protected]

@resdatall