Monthly Archives: October 2019

SAVE THE DATE: Announcement of CAFDO 2019

Francophone Open Data Conference

17 – 19 December – Abidjan, Ivory Coast

Conscious of the importance of data to build sustainable development, the Francophone African Community on Open Data (CAFDO) in collaboration with the Government of Côte d’Ivoire through the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Ministry host of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), organizes the second edition of the Francophone Open Data Conference (CAFDO 2019) from 17 to 19 December 2019 in Abidjan at the Palm Club Hotel.

The theme of this second edition is ” Open Data: From Principles to Action “. It is placed under the very high patronage of His Excellency the Prime Minister, Head of the Government of Côte d’Ivoire.

The objective of the conference is to promote the openness and reuse of data in French-speaking Africa. Specifically, it will:

Advocate at the political level for more openness of data produced in ministries and public institutions;
promote good practices on models of openness and exploitation of data;
identify common challenges and propose actions for a better contribution of data in building a sustainable economy in member countries.

It is expected at this conference, actors from government, civil society, development organizations, research centers, universities, digital communities (Open Source, Open Data, Open Government, etc.).

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Eurodoc participated in the 1st Data Steward School

This post is a syndicated copy of the one at http://eurodoc.net/news/2019/eurodoc-participated-in-the-1st-data-steward-school

Eurodoc Open Science ambassadors for France, Sothearath Seang (Policy Officer and Treasurer of Eurodoc) and Slovenia, Ana Slavec (Open Science Work Group Coordinator of Eurodoc) attended the Data Steward School that was held during the 4th edition of the CODATA-RDA Summer School for Research Data Science in Trieste, Italy on 5-16 August. The school is part of the FAIRsFAIR Initiative but unlike the previous editions of the summer school, this year’s edition included a pilot programme solely dedicated to data stewardship. Only five participants were selected to attend the program.

Data Stewards play an essential role in helping and accompanying researchers throughout the research process. They do so by providing information and guidelines about policy requirements, helping to implement the FAIR Data Principles and co-constructing a Data Management Plan (DMP). Data Stewards interact with many stakeholders including policy makers, researchers, data scientists, IT personnel and technicians. The FAIR data principles are a set of guidelines that aim to improve the findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability of digital assets. A DMP is a document that provides information on how the data will be generated, its nature, how it will be stored and shared and the restrictions that are applied to it. There are online tools that help you assess the FAIRness of your data and create a DMP like for example the ARDC self-assessment tool and DMP Online.

During the first week of the programme, all participants followed a common learning curriculum. For the second week, data stewards had a different programme that covered topics such as Metadata, Persistent Identifiers, Data Discovery, DMPs, Repositories, Ontologies and Linked Data. As part of the programme, data stewards had to prepare a data stewardship action plan to implement in the next six months. For Sothearath and Ana, that will include sharing the experience with members of the Eurodoc Working Group on Open Science and Eurodoc Open Science ambassadors to motivate them to learn more about data stewardship. We highly recommend this programme to every data scientist, data steward and early-career researcher because it provides substantial knowledge and training in the foundational skills of Research Data Science, essential for conducting good research.

Sothearath Seang, Treasurer of Eurodoc

Disaster Risk Reduction and Open Data Newsletter: October 2019 Edition

“If you ask us for ideas, act on them” – Youth call out UN, world leaders on climate action
The Youth Climate Action Summit brought youth climate champions together from more than 140 countries and territories to a platform to share their solutions on the global stage, and deliver a clear message to world leaders: we need to act now to address climate change.

Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data – Data for Now Initiative
The Data For Now initiative seeks to increase the sustainable use of robust methods and tools that improve the timeliness, coverage, and quality of SDG data through collaboration and partnership, technical and capacity support, and information sharing.

We could be losing the race against climate change, new UN report says
Scientists behind a landmark study of the links between oceans, glaciers, ice caps and the climate delivered a stark warning to the world on Wednesday: slash emissions or watch cities vanish under rising seas, rivers run dry and marine life collapse.

UNEP FI: Leading Financial Firms Commit to Improved Transparency on the Risks of Climate Change
The Global Commission on Adaption estimates over $7 trillion of climate change-related damages over the next ten years. To respond to these challenges, five leading banks and investors are committing to disclose risks and opportunities for their portfolios from the impacts of climate change by 2021.

UK Government: UK Aid to protect one billion people form impact of extreme weather
A new £175 million package will help make people safer and better prepared for disasters such as typhoons and hurricanes, as well as dealing with the aftermath.

Artificial Intelligence May Help Predict El Niño
Professor Yoo-Geun Ham and collaborators created a model using deep learning that forecasts El Niño and La Niña events 18 months in advance, beating current models that forecast only 1 year ahead.

Next Generation Disaster Data Infrastructure
Based on the targets of the Sendai Framework, this white paper proposes the next generation of disaster data infrastructure, which includes both novel and the most essential information systems and services that a country or a region can depend on to successfully gather, process and display disaster data to reduce the impact of natural hazards.

SDSN TReNDS Counting on the World to Act – A Roadmap for Governments to Achieve Modern Data Systems for Sustainable Development
In this report TReNDS details an action plan for governments and their development partners that will enable them to help deliver the SDGs globally by 2030. Report recommendations specifically aim to empower government actors or others concerned with evidence in support of sustainable development to advocate for, build, and lead a new data ecosystem.

NASA’s Earth Observing Data and Information System – Near-Term Challenges
NASA’s Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) has been a central component of the NASA Earth observation program since the 1990s. EOSDIS has evolved continually over the past three decades. However, many challenges remain. Challenges in three key areas are addressed in this paper: managing volume and variety, enabling data discovery and access, and incorporating user feedback and concerns.

Optimising Data Visualisation to Improve Humanitarian Decision-Making
The IFRC is inviting personnel and volunteers to submit visualisation designs for three core emergency operational datasets. The ten winners of the challenge will be invited to Geneva to attend a 3 day training on design principles led by Andy Kirk. Deadline for submission is 24 October.

World Bosai Forum/International Disaster Risk Conference 2019 – (09-12 Nov, Sendai, Japan)
The World Bosai Forum proposes solutions from various points of view to enable disaster risk reduction in Japan and overseas and aims to promote the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030.

GCF – Private Investment For Climate Conference 2019 – (Incheon, Republic of Korea, 7-9 October)
The GCF Private Investment for Climate Conference (“GPIC”) is a global marketplace and ecosystem where leading private sector actors including project sponsors, institutional investors, financial institutions, climate leaders, and the public sector come together to accelerate climate action in developing countries.

CODATA – VizAfrica Botswana (18-19 Nov, Botswana)
The VizAfrica 2019 Data Visualization Symposium will take place from 18th -19th November at the University of Botswana Gaborone, Botswana. The theme of the symposium is “Application of Data, Information and Scientific Visualization for Resource Management and Sustainability.”

CODATA – Helsinki Workshop on FAIR RDM in INstitutions (20-21 October, Helsinki, Finland)
FAIR Research Data Management involves robust planning, policies, infrastructure, training and support. Institutes that produce and consume data are required to ensure seamless accessibility to data and ensure practices that foster its reuse.

September 2019: Publications in the Data Science Journal

September 2019: Publications in the Data Science Journal

	Title: Data Sharing at Scale: A Heuristic for Affirming Data Cultures Author: Lindsay Poirier, Brandon Costelloe-Kuehn URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2019-048
	Title: Building Infrastructure for African Human Genomic Data Management Author:Ziyaad Parker , Suresh Maslamoney, Ayton Meintjes, Gerrit Botha, Sumir Panji, Scott Hazelhurst, Nicola Mulder URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2019-047
	Title: Analysis of Rainfall and Temperature Data Using Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition Author: Willard Zvarevashe, Symala Krishnannair, Venkataraman Sivakumar URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2019-046
	Title: Policy Needs to Go Hand in Hand with Practice: The Learning and Listening Approach to Data Management Author: Maria Cruz, Nicolas Dintzner, Alastair Dunning, Annemiek van der Kuil, Esther Plomp, Marta Teperek, Yasemin Turkyilmaz-van der Velden, Anke Versteeg URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2019-045
	Title: The Australian Research Data Commons Author: Michelle Barker, Ross Wilkinson, Andrew Treloar URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2019-044
	Title: The Impact of Targeted Data Management Training for Field Research Projects – A Case Study Author: Jonathan L. Petters , George C. Brooks, Jennifer A. Smith, Carola A. Haas URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2019-043