Unless otherwise noted, the slides in this presentation are licensed by Mark A. Parsons under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

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

Mark A. ParsonsSecretary General !!International Federation of Library AssociationsLyon, France20 August 2014

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

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

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

!

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

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

• Systems Networks Inter-networks

• “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 is infrastructure?

Not what, but When and Who is infrastructure?

Bridges and Gateways

Gateways are often wrongly understood as “technologies,” i.e. hardware or software alone. A more accurate approach conceives them as combining a technical solution with a social choice, i.e. a standard, both of which must be integrated into existing users’ communities of practice. Because of this, gateways rarely perform perfectly. — Edwards et al. 2007

Ecology of Infrastructure Figure derived from F. Millerand based on S. L. Star & K. Ruhleder (1996)

"Data Deluge," Brett Ryder, The Economist, Feb. 2010

Data Blizzard?© Mindy Veissid | Mindy Veissid Photography.

Diverse snow crystal photos by Kenneth G. Libbrecht snowcrystals.com

The long tail of science Heidorn 2008

Distribution of NSF Awards by Dollar Value !

© 2009 The Board of Trustees, University of Illinois

What libraries can do

• Help researchers describe their data• Help them pick formats to store it in• Provide guidance and services around choosing repositories and

providing access• Provide guidance on privacy, licensing, and sharing issues• Ensure preservation of appropriate data for future research reuse

Slide courtesy Dean Krafft, Cornell University Library

What more libraries can do

• Collaborate at scale across institutions and disciplines• Help link the data with its research context to make it more discoverable

and reusable• Help link it to publications about the research• Provide collaborative tools and spaces for researchers to work with the

data• Provide the people and organisational support to help researchers to

manage research data

Slide courtesy Dean Krafft, Cornell University Library

What can’t libraries do

• Handle the Data Deluge – “really big data”• Fund this ourselves – we need a business model to support the costs• Do work that doesn’t clearly benefit our own researchers and

institutions• Provide cyberinfrastructure to support analysis, simulation, and

visualization

Slide courtesy Dean Krafft, Cornell University Library

Libraries must contribute to the local, regional, and global data/information/knowledge infrastructure!

Deliverables that make data work

“Create - Adopt - Use”

• Adopted code, policy, specifications, standards, or 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 that can start today

RDA Principles OpennessConsensus

BalanceHarmonization

Community Driven Non-profit

RDA Organisational Framework

Distribution of 2,164 Individual RDA Members in 86 Countries 20 August 2014

Other6%Private

12%

Government17% Academia

65%

Map courtesy traveltip.org

Europe49%

North America38%

Austral-pacific 5%

Africa 2%

SouthAmerica 1%

Asia 5%

RDA Organisational Framework

Fran Berman

25

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

• Secretariat § Hilary Hanahoe § Fotis Karayannis § Kathy Fontaine § Mark Parsons, Sec Gen § Herman Stehouwer

!

•Organisational Assembly § Juan Bicarregui, co-Chair § Walter Stewart, co-Chair !

§ Technical Advisory Board § Bridget Almas § Simon Cox § Peter Fox § Francoise Genova § Bill Michener § Beth Plale, Chair § Susanna-Assunta Sansone, § Jamie Shiers § Rainer Stotzka § Andrew Treloar, Chair § Peter Wittenburg

New RDA Leadership since Plenary 1

Fran Berman

25

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

• Secretariat § Hilary Hanahoe § Fotis Karayannis § Kathy Fontaine § Mark Parsons, Sec Gen § Herman Stehouwer

!

•Organisational Assembly § Juan Bicarregui, co-Chair § Walter Stewart, co-Chair !

§ Technical Advisory Board § Bridget Almas § Simon Cox § Peter Fox § Francoise Genova § Bill Michener § Beth Plale, Chair § Susanna-Assunta Sansone, § Jamie Shiers § Rainer Stotzka § Andrew Treloar, Chair § Peter Wittenburg

New RDA Leadership since Plenary 1

TAB Nominations open until 31

August

Organisational Partners—key linkages

• Organisations play an essential role as adopters!

• Organisational Assembly = Organisational Members and Affiliates.

• Organisational Advisory Board will represent Organisational Assembly to Council

• Organisational Members pay (modest) dues and have a special voice within RDA helping ensure RDA products stay relevant

Image courtesy anybots.com

Organisations Ready to Join

§ Organisational Members: § Alliance for Permanent Access § American University Library § Australian National Data Service § Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro

Nacional de Supercomputación § Columbia University Library § CNRI § CSC § Digital Curation Center § EIROForum IT Working Group § eResearch Services and Scholarly

Application Development Division of Information Services, Griffith University

§ European Data Infrastructure (EUDAT) § National Institute of Advanced Industrial

Science and Technology (AIST), Japan § International Association of STM Publishers

§ Internet2 § Microsoft Research § NZ eScience Infrastructure § Purdue University Libraries § Research Data Canada § Scholarly Publishing and Academic

Resources Coalition (SPARC) § Washington University in St. Louis Libraries § Science and Technology Facilities Council !

§ Affiliates § CODATA § ICSU World Data System § ORCID § DataCite § CASRAI § Global Alliance for Genomics and Health

RDA Organisational Framework

• The group of government and non-profit science funding organisations 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 organisation.

RDA Colloquium—RDAC

RDA Organisational Framework

RDA Working Groups

• Brokering Governance*

• Data Citation WG

• Data Description Registry Interoperability

• Data Foundation and Terminology WG

• Data Type Registries WG

• Metadata Standards Directory Working Group

• PID Information Types WG

• Practical Policy WG

• RDA/CODATA Summer Schools in Data Science and Cloud Computing in the Developing World*

• RDA/WDS Publishing Data Bibliometrics WG

• RDA/WDS Publishing Data Services WG

• RDA/WDS Publishing Data Workflows WG

• Repository Audit and Certification DSA–WDS Partnership WG

• Standardisation of Data Categories and Codes WG

• The BioSharing Registry: connecting data policies, standards & databases in life sciences*

• Urban Quality of Life Indicators

• Wheat Data Interoperability WG

* in review

RDA Interest Groups

• Agricultural Data Interoperability IG• Big Data Analytics IG• Biodiversity Data Integration IG• Brokering IG• Community Capability Model IG• Data Fabric IG*• Data for Development• Data in Context IG• Development of cloud computing capacity and

education in developing world research• Digital Practices in History and Ethnography IG• Domain Repositories Interest Group• Education and Training on handling of research

data• ELIXIR Bridging Force IG*• Engagement IG• Ethics and Social Aspects of Data*• Federated Identity Management• Geospatial IG*

• Long tail of research data IG• Marine Data Harmonization IG• Metabolomics• Metadata IG• PID Interest Group• Preservation e-Infrastructure IG• RDA/CODATA Legal Interoperability IG• RDA/CODATA Materials Data, Infrastructure &

Interoperability IG• RDA/WDS Certification of Digital Repositories IG• RDA/WDS Publishing Data Cost Recovery for

Data Centres• RDA/WDS Publishing Data IG• Research data needs of the Photon and Neutron

Science community• Research Data Provenance• Service Management IG• Structural Biology IG• Toxicogenomics Interoperability IG

* in review

Get involved!

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

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

• Initiate or join an Interest Group

• Propose or join a Working Group

• Attend the RDA Plenaries

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.

—Henry Ford

Plenary 4 Amsterdam22-24 September 2014

©2013 Pecoff Studios Inc

Info: enquiries@rd-alliance.org

@resdatall

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.

Working  Group Deliverables Adopters/Users

Data  Founda*ons  and  Terminology Data  Organisa*onal  Model,   OIF,  EUDAT,  DASISH

Defined  terminology  in  a  registry

Data  Type  Registries Federa*on  between  data  type  registries CNRI,  EUDAT,  IDF

Persistent  Iden*fier  Informa*on  Types Core  informa*onal  types,   DKRZ

Prototype  protocol  and  API

Prac*cal  Policy Example  policy  sets EUDAT,  Chapel  Hill,  DKRZ,  (all  par*cipants)

Standardiza*on  of  Data  Categories  and  Codes BeOer  language  codes TLA,  Paradisec,  ISO

Metadata  Standards  Directory Metadata  Directory Dublin  Core,  Dataone,  MRC,  Jisc,  NEON,  NIST,  CLARIN,  DDI,  DPN,  OGF

Data  Cita*on:  making  data  citable Cita*on  of  dynamic  data  streams EUDAT,  etc.

DSA-­‐WDS  Cer*fica*on Merger  of  DSA  and  WDS  cer*fica*on DSA,  WDS

Wheat  Data  Interoperability  Group Wheat  Linked  data  framework INRA,  FAO,  CIMMYT

Data  Descrip*on  Registry  Interoperability

Interoperability  between  registries.  (bilateral  prototypes)

ANDS,  DATA-­‐PASS,  Dryad,  Thomson  Reuters  DCI,  VIVO,  CERN,  DANS,  DA|

RDA Working Group Outputs