This is the eighth in the series of short statements from candidates in the coming CODATA Elections at the General Assembly to be held on 15-16 November, 2021.  Ernie Boyko is a candidate for the CODATA Executive Committee as an Ordinary Member. He was nominated by Canada.

I have a background in Agriculture Economics and spent most of my career as a senior manager in Statistics Canada where I was involved in all aspects of data from collection to dissemination to analyses. After retiring from Statistics Canada, I spent 10 years with Carleton University where I introduced faculty and graduate students to the fundamentals of research data management.

My work with the International Association for Social Science Information Service and Technology (IASSIST) made me aware of the challenges that researchers faced in trying to afford the data from Statistics Canada. Working with the university research community, I co-founded Canada’s Data Liberation Initiative, a program that has lasted 25 years and provides Statistics Canada data to 79 post-secondary institutions. This program also underlined the need for good data management and documentation.

This experience along with serving on the steering committee developing the DDI data documentation standard led to more than a dozen World Bank and OECD missions in Africa and Asia helping national statistics agencies develop their dissemination strategies. I have been associated with the Canada National Committee for CODATA (was the previous Chair) for over 10 years and am also on the executive committee for CODATA International. As part of CODATA I have co-chaired a forum for National Committees from member countries in an effort to strengthen two-way communications. I hope to continue this work. I have an interest in reaching out to graduate students and young scientists to promote the mission of CODATA and data management, and the need for developing a career path for data stewards to support the Canadian research community. I.e., make data wrangling into a career path.