News & Articles

Elizabeth Marincola, Senior Advisor for Communications and Advocacy at the African Academy of Sciences, to give a keynote at International Data Week 2018

The organisers and programme committee are very pleased to announce that Elizabeth Marincola, Senior Advisor for Communications and Advocacy at the African Academy of Sciences, will give a keynote presentation at the International Data Week 2018, 5-8 November, Gaborone, Botswana

Marincola is a longtime leader of science publishing, advocacy, education, communication and policy. She is Senior Advisor for Communications and Advocacy at the African Academy of Sciences, a pan-African organization dedicated to the advancement of quality science across the Continent. At AAS, she is leading the development and launch of AAS Open Research, an innovative, transparent publishing platform. Marincola prior served as CEO of PLOS, publisher of the world’s largest open access journal. She was President of the Society for Science & the Public, Publisher of Science News, and Executive Director of the American Society for Cell Biology. She has served on multiple national and international advisory committees and boards, including the Board of Directors of eLife and the Strategic Planning Committee for the NIH National Library of Medicine. Marincola received the (U.S.) Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring, and currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health. She received her A.B. from Stanford University and MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business

We will be announcing other confirmed keynotes over the next few days!
 
The deadline for proposals for papers and abstracts for the SciDataCon component of International Data Week is fast approaching (Deadline 25 June)


Ismail Serageldin, Founding Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, to give a keynote at International Data Week 2018

The organisers and programme committee are very pleased to announce that Ismail Serageldin, Founding Director of the Founding Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina,  and notable thinker on international science matters, will give a keynote presentation at the International Data Week 2018, 5-8 November, Gaborone, Botswana
 
ISMAIL SERAGELDIN, Founding Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA), the new Library of Alexandria, inaugurated in 2002, is currently, Emeritus Librarian, and member of the Board of Trustees of the Library of Alexandria. He is advisor to the Egyptian Prime Minister in matters concerning culture, science, and museums. He serves as Chair and Member of a number of advisory committees for academic, research, scientific and international institutions, including as co-Chair of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center (NGIC), and serves on the Advisory Committee of the World Social Science Report for 2013 and 2016, as well as the UNESCO-supported World Water Scenarios (2013) and the executive council of the Encyclopedia of Life (2010) and Chairs the Executive Council of the World Digital Library (2010).  He has held many international positions including as Vice President of the World Bank (1993–2000). He also co-chaired the African Union’s high level panel for Biotechnology (2006) and again for Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) in 2012-2013, and was a member of the ICANN Panel for the review of the internet future (2013). 
 
For more information about Ismail Serageldin, please see http://www.serageldin.com/Home/Index.aspx
 
We will be announcing other confirmed keynotes over the next few days!
 
The deadline for proposals for papers and abstracts for the SciDataCon component of International Data Week is fast approaching (Deadline 25 June)


Call for Proposals, CODATA Task Groups 2018-2020 - Deadline 18 July 2018

CODATA invites proposals for Task Groups to be approved by the 31st CODATA General Assembly which will be held on 9-10 November 2018, in Gaborone, Botswana, following International Data Week 2018, 5-8 November 2018 (comprising our research conference SciDataCon 2018).
 
The final deadline for submissions of Task Group Proposals is 18 July 2018.  Proposals will be reviewed by the CODATA Executive Committee and by external experts.  Recommendations will be presented to the CODATA General Assembly which will select the Task Groups.
 
Task Group Proposals should be submitted on this form to Simon Hodson, CODATA Executive Director simon@codata.org by the deadline of 18 July 2018.
 
Task Groups are approved by the General Assembly for 2 years. Existing CODATA Task Groups may apply for renewal and are subject to the same criteria, as described in the attached document.
 
The three priority areas in the CODATA Strategy are as follows:
 
  1. To promote Open Data principles, policies and practices;
  2. To advance the frontiers of data science and its adaptation to scientific research;
  3. To build capacity for  improving skills and the functioning of science systems (particularly in low and middle income countries - LMICs)
The call suggests some high priority topics under each of these headings (see the call document for further details): 
 
Open data principles, policies and practices
    • developing good practice and recommendations around data principles and policies;
    • examining the limits of openness;
    • synthesizing and advancing work on the benefits of data sharing;
    • exploring the theme of data diplomacy to consider what international agreements can promote the more open availability of data.
 
Frontiers of Data Science
    • Reproducibility in research
    • Statistical, epistemological and ethical challenges of Big Data
    • Criteria for selection and preservation of research data
    • Development of glossaries, data dictionaries or ontologies
    • Data integration and data strategies for international, transdisciplinary research programmes
 
Capacity building, data skills and education
    • analyzing requirements for data education
    • developing and refining the curriculum for ‘research data science’;
    • examining and articulating the processes and standards for the creation of reusable online materials and the development of those materials;
    • examining and addressing issues around access to research software, the maintenance and development of Open Source research software.
 
Task Group proposals addressing these or similar issues are particularly encouraged.  This does not mean that Task Group proposals addressing areas not described below will be considered out of scope: we invite and encourage innovative ideas from the CODATA community.

 


Turning FAIR Data into Reality - Report and Action Plan Consultation until 5 August

The European Commission's Expert Group on FAIR Data, chaired by Simon Hodson, CODATA Executive Director, published the interim report 'Turning FAIR Data into Reality' and the interim 'FAIR Data Action Plan' on 11 June 2018 at the Second EOSC Summit in Brussels.

Interim Report and Action Plan

The interim report and Action Plan are available from the Zenodo repository with the DOI-URLs below:

 

Consultation until 5 August

Consultation is being conducted on the interim report and Action Plan until 5 August 2018.  A commentable version of the report is available on Google Drive.  Structured comments on the Action Plan and specific recommendations and actions may be made via a dedicated GitHub repository.

The Expert Group will conduct webinars to support and facilitated the consutlation and these will be announced in due course.

 

About the Expert Group and the Report

It is recognised that FAIR data (data that are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) play an essential role in the objectives of Open Science to improve and accelerate scientific research, to increase the engagement of society, and to contribute significantly to economic growth. Accordingly, ‘the Open Science agenda contains the ambition to make FAIR data sharing the default for scientific research by 2020.’ The overall objective of the European Commission Expert Group on Turning FAIR data into reality is to help operationalise and facilitate the achievement of this goal.

Rec. 4: Components of a FAIR data ecosystem The realisation of FAIR data relies on, at minimum, the following essential components: policies, DMPs, identifiers, standards and repositories. There need to be registries cataloguing each component of the ecosystem and automated workflows between them.To this end, this report that examines the FAIR data principles, considers other supporting concepts and discusses the changes necessary, as well as existing activities and stakeholders to make these interventions. Recommendations and actions are presented as an Action Plan for consideration by the Commission, Member States and leading stakeholders in the research and data communities.

It might have been possible to take a data centric point of view and to work through the FAIR principles slavishly or systematically (depending on your point of view) asking what needs to be done to achieve each one. The Expert Group decided at an early point that this would not be the most effective approach to our task. Rather we felt it was important to take a holistic and systemic approach and to describe the broader range of changes required to achieve FAIR data. It is hoped that what has emerged will be at one and the same time an Action Plan that will be immediately useful and a longer standing survey and discussion, providing a discursive framework for ongoing considerations of how to make FAIR data a reality.

Consultation is open on the interim report and Action Plan and we actively invite constructive feedback. Does the Action Plan highlight the correct priorities? Are the recommendations sound and the actions tangible and achievable? Are they presented in a way that will helpfully guide the stakeholders mentioned? Is the Action Plan sufficiently grounded in the discussions and arguments of the broader report? Given the way this particularly piece of marble has already been cut and carved, what still needs to be done to make a polished statue emerge?

Consultation on the interim report was launched at the EOSC summit on 11 June 2018 and initiated by means of a workshop at that meeting. It will be pursued by online means and by webinars until 5 August. A final version of the Report and Action Plan will be published at the Austrian Presidency event on 23 November.

The group has conducted its work by means of face-to-face and virtual meetings and a lot of asynchronous, collaborative work with the text. All members of the group have contributed substantively and substantially to the text. We hope that we have harnessed the strength and collective wisdom of the Expert Group, while minimising the flaws of group authorship. Our approach has been discursive and we have endeavoured to explore the arguments relating to FAIR in detail to identify the key steps needed for implementation. This is an iterative process and the final version of the report will present a more condensed argument.

The group has been chaired by Simon Hodson, CODATA Executive Director, with Sarah Jones, Associate Director of the Digital Curation Centre, as Rapporteur; but in effect the two have acted as co-chairs.

 

Membership of the Expert Group

  • Sandra Collins, National Library of Ireland
  • Françoise Genova, Observatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg
  • Natalie Harrower, Digital Repository of Ireland
  • Simon Hodson, CODATA, Chair of the Group
  • Sarah Jones, Digital Curation Centre, Rapporteur
  • Leif Laaksonen, CSC-IT Center for Science
  • Daniel Mietchen, Data Science Institute, University of Virginia
  • Rūta Petrauskaité, Vytautas Magnus University
  • Peter Wittenburg, Max Planck Computing and Data Facility


TWO WEEKS TO GO! International Data Week - SciDataCon Proposals for Papers and Posters, Deadline 25 June

International Data Week will take place in Gaborone, Botswana on 5-8 November 2018 with a number of related events before and after.  In an integrated programme it combines SciDataCon, the international conference on issues of data in research and the 12th RDA Plenary Meeting   There will be stimulating keynotes, panels and workshops and other events, including the CODATA General Assembly  before and after the main conference.
 
International Data Week is a global conference taking place in Africa.  It encompasses all issues relating to data in research from cutting edge issues in data science (the digital frontiers of global science), through challenges of data intensive research, research infrastructures, data stewardship, the use of data in science, society, innovation and development.
 
International Data Week is organised by CODATA  the Research Data Alliance, the World Data System  the African Open Science Platform and the Botswana Open Data Open Science Forum, represented by the University of Botswana.

Submit Abstracts for Papers and Posters: https://www.scidatacon.org/IDW2018/submit/

Call for Papers and Posters: https://www.scidatacon.org/conference/IDW2018/call_for_papers/

Provisionally Accepted Sessions: https://www.scidatacon.org/IDW2018/sessions/

Themes and Scope of SciDataCon: https://www.scidatacon.org/conference/IDW2018/conference_themes_and_scope/

Call for Papers
For SciDataCon we request that proposals should be submitted for research papers, practice papers, lightning talks and panel contributions: https://www.scidatacon.org/IDW2018/submit/

In some cases, session organisers will be inviting proposals, but please note that you may submit a proposal to any accepted session if you think your proposal is a good fit with that session topic. 

Abstracts must be submitted to an accepted session or to the General Submission session. You may consult the descriptions of accepted sessions at https://www.scidatacon.org/IDW2018/sessions/

When submitting your abstract at https://www.scidatacon.org/IDW2018/submit/ you will need to select the appropriate session. 

Abstracts submitted to specific sessions will be reviewed for their individual quality and according to their appropriateness for that session. Abstracts submitted to the General Submission option will be reviewed for individual quality and, if accepted, will be assigned to an accepted session or grouped into thematic sessions.

Accepted abstracts will be available from the conference website and will form a persistent collection, so please consider the following recommendations carefully:
  • Please submit your proposal of a length appropriate to the intervention. For example, we recommend that the proposal for a research paper should be 800-1600 words and for a practice paper 600-1000 words.  For lightning talks or panel interventions 300-600 words is sufficient.  These are guides and please use your judgement.  We strongly discourage proposals of more than 1600 words.
  • Submission must include a summary.  The summary should be brief - 100-250 words, and certainly no more than 250 words.

Call for Posters
Posters will be an important feature of SciDataCon 2018. The organisers will endeavour to ensure that all poster presenters have an opportunity to give a lightning talk as well as participating in the poster reception.  Posters can often be a more effective way of communicating key technical features of a paper and providing a visual summary that really engages the viewer.

Abstracts must be submitted to an accepted session or to the General Submission session. You may consult the descriptions of accepted sessions at https://www.scidatacon.org/IDW2018/sessions/

When submitting your abstract at https://www.scidatacon.org/IDW2018/submit/ you will need to select the appropriate session.

For a Poster Abstract we suggest 800-1600 words and no more than 1600 words in length. 
Submission must include a summary.  The summary should be brief - 100-250 words, and certainly no more than 250 words.
Please describe the subject of the proposed poster in as much detail as possible. Describe the structure of the poster. Above all, let us know:

• why will this be an interesting feature of the conference?
• why is it particularly suited to a poster and/or demo session?
• why the poster or demo will catch delegates' attention and why will they stop and listen to you? 


Read more CODATA news