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Digital Representation of Units of Measurement (DRUM)

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Mission and objectives

The objective of this task group is to work with the International Science Unions to raise awareness of, educate, and enable their communities in the understanding and implementation of digital unit representation. The TG has demonstrated that units are an essential part of FAIR data for all research disciplines and therefore the whole of CODATA, but this key role is still too often overlooked. Without clearly definedand expressed units, data becomes un-useable outside the immediate people / domain that created the data. The TG work underpins all of the major aims and objectives of CODATA. Since the inception of the DRUM TG the role of AI and the Large Language Modelshave become even more obvious. Without clear descriptions of quantities with units, these cannot be expected to deliver sensible outputs.

Significance

The objective of this task group is to work with the International Science Unions to raise awareness of, educate, and enable their communities in the understanding and implementation of digital unit representation.

The TG has demonstrated that units are an essential part of FAIR data for all research disciplines and therefore the whole of CODATA, but this key role is still too often overlooked. Without clearly definedand expressed units, data becomes un-useable outside the immediate people / domain that created the data. The TG work underpins all of the major aims and objectives of CODATA. Since the inception of the DRUM TG the role of AI and the Large Language Modelshave become even more obvious. Without clear descriptions of quantities with units, these cannot be expected to deliver sensible outputs.

Impact

Extend DRUM’s interactions with the Scientific Unions; we have a very strong interaction with IUPAC, and have now started to grow those with IUPAP, and we will be looking to engage with otherunions in 2026 as part of a wider effort within CODATA to strengthen interactions with Scientific Unions.

Through the current membership we are also engaged with BIPM and particularly their aims aligned with the groups’ digital agendas. We seek to build the relationship so that it is more systematic and less dependent on particular individuals.

We will also be strengthening our links within CODATA and we will start with the CODATA CDIF work and then seek to engage with other Task Groups on their needs in relation to units.

We are looking at ways in which we can engage with ISO.

We will continue to grow our interactions with publishers.

We will put out a general call for DRUM membership in Q2 2026 to complement existing DRUM membership.

Continue to investigation of the M-layer ideas from the metrology community as an enhancement of the Maxwellian quantity calculus approach to carry more metadata tosolve some of the issues in transformation of units and quantities with dimension 1.

Continue to develop the digital knowledge graph of the fundamental constants.

We will take the developments of the digital units across into current IUPAC projects (e.g. Green and Gold Books) as exemplars, and look for opportunities to collaborate in similar ways with other scientific unions (e.g. IUPAP).

Planned (and later on actual) activities and outputs for 2025-2027

  • Arrange a follow up conference to DUST meeting, brining Scientific Unions and CODATA and Infrastructure projects (PSDI – UK and NFDI – Germany)
  • We will update the survey of digital representations of units and maintain the database of these systems.
  • We have several papers in development and we will publicise these working papers more widely to attract interest in DRUM’s work.
  • We will enhance our interactions with the wider community through greater use of social media (e.g. LinkedIn) more on our GitHub and more support for the DRUM website.

Past Achievements

The TG interacts with the community in multiple ways, i.e. through scientific papers, conference participation, organisation of specialised events/sessions, best practise guides and curated overviews of unit frameworks. Previous achievements include:

Contacts

Co-chairs: Jeremy Frey
TG Secretary: Stuart Chalk
ExComm liaison: Richard Hartshorn, Cyrus Walther

Page last updated: 2026-02-10.

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