Monthly Archives: June 2019

Humans of Data 30

“The things that made me interested in data twenty-five years ago are the same things that make me interested in it now.  It’s the way structures and narratives are going to define our culture and who we are.  I was interested initially in the historical perspective: how is data going to change the subtlety about how we understand past cultures?  And how future generations are going to access data, manipulate it and study it.  Very few people were interested in that, and that was exciting.  Now I’m a bit scared of it.  It’s increasingly clear that we can use data in a contemporary context for social evils.

Data – and the systems that store it – can be ugly, but they can also be beautiful.  Some day, people are going to be interested in the beauty of system architectures and the beauty of database design – or the ugliness.  It’s like studying a Gothic cathedral or a contemporary city: the architecture defines how we feel and the narrative that plays out in our lives.

I see emerging possibilities in machine learning, in the blockchain and in other areas.  I share an understanding of the risks of data.  And I believe that what kind of research you actually do – and how you enable others to be creative to do things – these are equally important.  More focus needs to go on developing the community and helping our colleagues to progress and excel.  The ways forward in digital curation and data presentation are very much going to come from human collaboration and not from one lone person who’s thought of a technical solution that no-one has thought of before.  This is not the field of lone scholars – this is the field of general community effort.”

World Data System: Early Career Researcher Training Workshop 2019

https://www.flickr.com/photos/sbszine/9353420967/

Data Curation and Management: Current Achievements and Future Challenges

The management and curation of research data is a very timely topic. All researchers rely on data they have themselves collected or that are the outputs of previous studies. Moreover, researchers are increasingly required to organize the long-term storage and access of the data used to obtain their results. As such, data training is highly relevant to budding scientists as they embark on their careers!

With many thanks to the generous sponsorship of the European Geosciences Union (EGU), the World Data System of the International Science Council (WDS) is delighted to offer a Research Data Management (RDM) Training Workshop aimed at early career researchers and scientists (ECRs).

The Workshop will take place on 6–8 November 2019 at Institut de Physique du Globe in Paris, France. Twenty-four (24) seats are available, for whom dormitory accommodation (FIAP) and meals will be covered. There is also limited funding available towards some participants travel costs. If more people apply than there are places available, selection of participants by the WDS Scientific Committee(WDS-SC) will be based upon their interest in the Workshop.

Apply Now!

The Regional Master program in Biodiversity informatics opens registration to students

The master program in Biodiversity informatics has opened its doors at the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences of the University of Abomey-Calavi, Benin, in October 2017. It is at its third student batch from next academic year.

It is regional in that it receives students of several nationalities and national and international teachers (especially from the United States and Europe) come to teach in the program.

The objective of this Regional Master is to train specialists of a new generation in biodiversity, able to integrate threats to biodiversity to research issues to deduce relevant results to inform decision-making on biodiversity in the context of climate and global change.

Here is the link to the section of the communication and outreach on TV that clarified the master program (https://youtu.be/4ajSBF1Jdyk) (it is in French)

We invite you to join or massively enroll your staff in the program in order to meet the challenges of mobilizing and using biodiversity data for decision-making.

Applications are already in progress since the 1st June and we are closing on 30th June 2019.

The program is taught in French and English.