Author Archives: codata_blog

Growing the Conversation on the Science of Data

Image CC-BY-NC Laura Molloy @LM_HATII from the art intervention series ‘Humans of Data’ http://codata.org/blog/category/humans-of-data/

Mark Parsons joins CODATA as Editor-in-Chief, Data Science Journal

I am honored and excited to take on the role of Editor in Chief for the Data Science Journal.

I have had a bit of history with DSJ. One of my earliest peer-reviewed papers was published with Ruth Duerr in DSJ (Parsons and Duerr 2005). I vividly remember hurrying to make revisions in Costa Rica before heading offline for several weeks. I’d still like to meet one of the reviewers (perhaps I have) who made really helpful comments on how to organize and present the paper to get my points across in a more rigorous and impactful way. I was a data practitioner, not a researcher, and was largely unschooled in formal scientific writing. The guidance was most valuable, and the paper still gets cited now and again.

Years later, I and Peter Fox published what was one one of my most controversial and influential papers (Parsons and Fox 2013). This time, DSJ allowed me to publish after an unconventional public review process involving reams of open review comments from more than two-dozen people.

In short, DSJ has been a catalyst for my career. So I am eager to help foster the journal’s growth and influence and maybe help a few more data scientists along their way.

I am especially interested in helping DSJ build its niche as an influential journal of the ‘science of data’ in the sense that CODATA described it decades ago. We need more fora that encourage dialog across research and practice to understand all the issues around the socio-technical work necessary for data to be findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable, ethical, secure, etc.

I have been a member of the DSJ editorial board since the journal moved to Ubiquity Press, and I have been impressed at how Sarah Callaghan and other editors have worked to increase the journal’s quality. I want to continue this momentum. I want to further bolster the review quality and also raise the possibility of open reviews. The nature of DSJ is that it often attracts submissions and requires reviews from practitioners who have much less of a mandate to publish than researchers. I believe practitioners should be encouraged to contribute (with research as well as practice papers), so we should do what we can to recognize and model excellent contributions in this area.

While improving the content of DSJ, we should also continue to modernize its presentation. We need to actively consider machine-readable papers and content negotiation for both the papers and the metadata. Much like at its founding, DSJ needs to advance the whole concept of scholarly communication.

Thanks to Sarah’s great work, DSJ has a bright future as submissions continue to increase in number and quality. DSJ was ahead of its time when it was founded in the 1990s. I am eager to explore how it can continue to push important conversations forward. I welcome all your ideas. Please tell me what you think. Better yet, tell the community through a submission to DSJ!

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish’: a farewell from outgoing Data Science Journal Editor-in-Chief, Sarah Callaghan

Back in early 2015, I was approached at a coffee break at a conference, and invited to take on the role of Editor-in-Chief of the Data Science Journal. This was a little bit of a surprise, I will confess, as my previous academic journal experience had been as an associate editor, along with some projects working on data citation and data publishing. The opportunity was too good to resist, however, and with the support of my employer CEDA  I was very pleased to take on the role.

My tenure as EiC also coincided with the move of the journal to its current platform on Ubiquity Press, and came with it the need to appoint a new editorial board, develop a new scope and guidance, collate a new reviewer database, and the other minutiae of re-launching an academic journal. All these things were achieved with the help of my colleagues in the editorial board and section editors, along with the help and support of the Ubiquity Press staff and the CODATA Executive Committee.

In my four year tenure, I am very proud of the fact that 135 papers have been published, along with 6 Special Collections with another 5 Special Collections in the pipeline. The journal has grown more popular and is steadily publishing research that is more impactful as time goes on [https://www.scimagojr.com/journalsearch.php?q=4700152809&tip=sid], and this is a testament to the hard work of all involved – including our reviewers and authors.

It is time for me to hand over the role of EiC to another, and it is with no small amount of sadness that I do so. Being EiC has been incredibly rewarding (and occasionally infuriating) and I have learned a great deal from it. I am very pleased to know that Mark Parsons is taking over the role, and know that the journal will be in safe, knowledgeable hands.

It only remains for me to say my farewells and thank yous. Thank you to the authors, without whom there would be no articles to publish. A thousand thank yous to all my editors, reviewers, colleagues and friends – your efforts on behalf of the journal are deeply, deeply appreciated, as is your wisdom and expertise. I wish you all the very best for the future, and look forward to reading more excellent papers published in the DSJ!

Sarah

The advent of big data heralds huge opportunities

This article was first published by the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology http://www.jkuat.ac.ke/prof-muliaro-the-advent-of-big-data-heralds-huge-opportunities/

Prof. Muliaro delivering his public lecture presentation

The advent and emergence of “Big Data” and its related technologies has brought with it immense opportunities which can be seized if a new era of openness that leverages on various technologies, institutional and organizational frameworks that are critical in harnessing data are developed.

This was revealed during a public lecture titled: Openness in Data, Science and Governance,  delivered by Muliaro Wafula, an Associate Professor in the Department of Computing, School of Computing and Information Technology and Director of the ICT Centre of Excellence and Open Data at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), Monday, April, 15, 2019.

Addressing the audience that included the President of CODATA, Prof. Barend Mons and the Executive Director, Dr. Simon Hudson, Prof. Muliaro gave an exposition on the concept of Open data, Open science, and Open governance.

Prof. Mons makes his brief remarks

Characterizing open science as a combination of concepts, tools, platforms and media to promote creation and dissemination of knowledge in free, open and more inclusive ways Prof Muliaro stated that “the goal of open science is to accelerate scientific progress and discoveries to benefit all, guaranteeing that scientific outputs are publicly available and easily accessible for others to use, re-use, and build upon.

He identified what he termed as key open science challenges namely; lack of established best open science practices, competition among scientists, existing credit systems that favour closed science, non-disclosure agreements and copyright laws and intellectual property guidelines as some of the drawbacks against full realization of open science.

Citing the partnership that brings together Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, JICA AFRICA-ai-JAPAN Project, IBM East Africa, CODATA and the Kenya Open Data Initiative (KODI), Prof. Muliaro said, the parties were working closely to promote the value of open research data through organizing hackathons on selected datasets of interest to the public in disciplines such as public health and agriculture.

Leveraging on their synergies, the initiative seeks to build, among others, “innovative mobile and web applications that make access and consumption of research data easy for the benefit of the society; encourage scientists to open their research data for public consumption and use, showcase open data capability in providing innovative solutions to societal challenges,” Prof. Muliaro stated.

Prof. Abukutsa delivers the opening remarks

He mentioned Smart Health Application based on indigenous vegetables data, Children Food Nutrition Formula Application based on local Kenyan foods, and Effects of Mugukaa on Health, as some of the key outputs under the initiative.

The Vice Chancellor, Prof. Victoria Wambui Ngumi, in her opening message said, the journey towards embracing open data at JKUAT began five years ago when the institution established the ICT Centre of Excellence and Open Data (iCEOD) – which is expected to serve Kenya and Africa as a region, adding that the Centre had already taken its strategic role seriously, making contributions at the national and global level.

Prof. Ngumi further observed in the remarks read on her behalf by the Deputy Vice Chancellor in charge of Research, Production and Extension, Prof. Mary Abukutsa, that “JKUAT is among few leading universities that have taken a bold step towards creating an enabling environment for open data by formulating and adopting an Open Data Research (JORD) Policy in line with the CODATA – led Nairobi Open Data Principles of 2014.”

She however decried insufficient and poor public sensitization on issues such as open data, open science and open governance, arguing that “the tradition and culture for most people has been to be private by default.” Prof Ngumi called for a deliberate strategy to towards changing that mindset.

A section of the academic community including guests
who attendedthe public lecture presentation.

The President of CODATA, Prof. Barend Mons, said Africa could lead the initiative to use data at the global level noting,  “data or knowledge is the new oil or gold and it could be more useful if it is shared,” while CODATA Executive Director, Dr. Simon Hudson, underscored the importance of data in implementing sustainable development goals by “creating and measuring data to make meaningful, mindful informed decisions.”

Present at the public lecture included; Deputy Vice Chancellor (Administration), Prof. Bernard Ikua; Principal, College of Pure and Applied Sciences, Prof. David Mulati; Deans of Schools including the Dean, School of Computing and Information Technology, Prof. Stephen Kimani,  Heads of Departments and Faculty and students.

Tracking the impact of the CODATA/RDA data science schools: the case of the OSG

The CODATA-RDA Research Data Science Schools provide Early Career Researchers with the opportunity to meet their colleagues and learn relevant Data Science skills. We actively encourage students to use their learning as an opportunity to create new collaborations and generate new research.

One spectacularly successful example of this is Oscar Arbelaez Echeverry from Colombia who, through links made at the schools, enabled approximately 1.2 million CPU hours [this is akin to having access to a 1600 core cluster for a month] to be run on Monte Carlo simulations. As a result of accessing the Open Science Grid resource, six publications [1-7] have been generated by his supervisor, in the best journals in the field and for wider audiences . By providing Oscar with the relevant skills, he has been instrumental to advancing research in his home institution.

Oscar attended the Trieste school in 2017 (#dataTrieste17). He has a background in Condensed Matter Physics and was working with Juan Alzate-Cardona at the Departamento de Física y Química, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Manizales. Juan is working on computational studies of magnetic materials. This requires extensive Monte Carlo simulations of the materials and is highly computationally intensive, but allows insights into the nature of the materials such as the magnetocaloric effect – which in essence is how the temperature of a magenetic material changes when subjected to a change in the magnetic field around it.

As it was, the research team was highly limited in the work they could do because they didn’t have sufficient access to compute resource and were unaware of freely accessible services like the Open Science Grid (OSG) and how to apply them. During the school Oscar was introduced to the OSG in the Computational Infrastructures course run by Rob Quick. OSG scavenges computing cycles from the vast amount of grid computing clusters available worldwide and offers 1.5 billion CPU hours per year which is free and open to all researchers. Oscar described the problem he was having to Rob and they agreed to make use of the OSG.

Since being a student at the school in 2017, Oscar has gone to act as a helper in the school in São Paulo, Brazil. He is now in Switzerland completing research for his Ph.D. This success story is precisely why we work on these schools – the schools are not just about the materials; they are about building communities and creating connections. These connections are key in enabling these opportunities and successes for researchers in Low and Middle Income Countries.

If you give people access to tools and teach them how to use them, you can transform the research being generated. The CODATA/RDA schools are doing this across the LMIC, one student at a time. Well, 250+ now and counting… Just imagine the ripple effect all these individuals have had in their home communities!

[1] Pordes, R. et al. The open science grid. J. Phys. Conf. Ser. 78, 012057 (2007)

[2] Alzate-Cardona, J. D., Sabogal-Suárez, D., Arbeláez-Echeverri, O. D. & Restrepo-Parra, E. Vegas: Software package for the atomistic simulation of magnetic materials. Rev. Mex. Física 64, 490 (2018).

[3] Alzate-Cardona, J. D., Sabogal-Suárez, D., Evans, R. F. L. & Restrepo-Parra, E. Optimal phase space sampling for Monte Carlo simulations of Heisenberg spin systems. J. Phys. Condens. Matter 31, 095802 (2019).

[4] Alzate-Cardona, J. D., Salcedo-Gallo, J. S., Rodríguez-Patiño, D. F., Acosta-Medina, C. D. & Restrepo-Parra, E. Unveiling a Scaling and Universal Behavior for the Magnetocaloric Effect in Cubic Crystal Structures: A Monte Carlo Simulation. Sci. Rep. 9, 5228 (2019).

[5] Acosta-Medina, C. D., Alzate-Cardona, J. D. & Restrepo-Parra, E. Monte Carlo study of the magnetization reversal times in a core/shell magnetic nanoparticle. Comput. Condens. Matter 17, e00338 (2018).

[6] Sabogal-Suárez, D., Alzate-Cardona, J. D. & Restrepo-Parra, E. Influence of the shape on exchange bias in core/shell nanoparticles. J. Magn. Magn. Mater. 482, 120–124 (2019).

[7] Salcedo-Gallo, J. S., Rodríguez-Patiño, D. F., Alzate-Cardona, J. D., Barco-Ríos, H. & Restrepo-Parra, E. Magnetocaloric effect and magnetic properties in NdMnO3 perovskite: A Monte Carlo approach. Phys. Lett. A 382, 2069–2074 (2018).

Deadline for Applications for the 2019 Foundation School http://www.codata.org/working-groups/research-data-science-summer-schools/datatrieste-2019 and Advanced Workshops http://www.codata.org/working-groups/research-data-science-summer-schools/datatrieste-2019 is approaching: 18 April

This post is a syndicated copy of the one at https://www.rd-alliance.org/blogs/tracking-impact-codatarda-data-science-schools-case-osg.html

Disaster Risk Reduction and Open Data Newsletter: April 2019 Edition

England could run short of water within 25 years
Sir James Bevan, the Chief Executive of the Environment Agency, recently shared these sentiments at the Waterwise conference in London.

Philippines: EU Copernicus programme provides full, free open data to aid in tackling El Niño
The drought that is currently sweeping the country as a result of El Niño is already hitting Filipino farmers hard.

Protecting the world from the threat of pandemics
Creating mathematical and computational models of infectious diseases like pandemic flu gives government and policy-makers a toolkit to respond to an ever-present threat, says the University of Melbourne.

Read the full newsletter here

Nairobi INSPIRE Hackathon 2019

A Hackathon and Ideathon for Sustainable Africa

The IST-Africa 2019 conference, supported by the European Commission (EC) and the African Union Commission (AUC), addresses a series of societal challenges.

The Nairobi INSPIRE Hackathon 2019 is a contribution to the joint efforts to solve these challenges. The hackathon addresses some of the key topics identified by the IST-Africa conference, such as agriculture, environmental sustainability, collaborative open innovation and ICT-enabled entrepreneurship.

The Nairobi INSPIRE Hackathon 2019 is one of the satellite INSPIRE hackathons. The hackathon is organised in the frame of the IST Africa 2019 Conference. The hackathon is a collaborative event organised by Plan4all and Club of Ossiach associations and EU projects including EO4Agri, DataBio, NextGEOSS, EUXDAT, PoliVisu and AFarCloud.

DATES

The hackathon starts in March 2019 by creating hackathon teams. The hackathon will then run remotely until the event held on 10 May 2019 in Nairobi where the hackathon results will be presented within a workshop at IST Africa starting at 9am.

VENUE

The hackathon consists of two parts including:

  • a virtual period: The teams will work virtually led by the team mentors. Membership and participation in this part is open to all.  There will be educational webinars during the virtual hackathon to facilitate the progress/collaboration.
  • a workshop (attendance optional for team members/participants) which is the closing event of the hackathon where the results of the hackathon will be presented. The workshop will take place in Laico Regency Hotel, Loita Street, Nairobi, which is located in the city centre. For more details, please visit the IST Africa website.

GOAL

The goal of the Nairobi INSPIRE Hackathon 2019 is to build and strengthen relationships between several EU projects and African communities. This hackathon is not a competition. The focus is on building relationships, making rapid developments and collecting ideas for future research and innovation.

TEAMS & MENTORS

The Nairobi INSPIRE Hackathon 2019 is organised using an unconventional approach, tailored to cater for cross-continental collaboration.

The hackathon starts with a set of predefined projects. Each project has a mentor (see the list of projects and mentors below). The participants of the hackathon can choose to work on any of the predefined projects. In this way, teams will be built to collaborate on the projects.

The mentors will organise the work and are responsible for the communication in the project teams and will act as team leaders.

The projects and their mentors for the Nairobi INSPIRE Hackathon 2019 include:

REGISTRATION

In order to participate in the hackathon, please register at https://goo.gl/VME2ZG

You can join the teams mentioned above at any time between now and the end of April 2019. The registration is open to anyone from anywhere in the world as most of the hackathon is done virtually.

In case you will participate at the hackathon workshop within IST-Africa in Nairobi (10 May 2019), you need to register for the IST-Africa Conference itself.

TIMELINE

  • 6 March 2019 – start of the hackathon, registration opens
  • (Beginning of April TBC) – a series of webinars introducing the teams and their progress. There are educational elements in these webinars.
  • 1-7 May 2019 – preparing presentations for the workshop in Nairobi
  • 10 May 2019 – presentation of the hackathon results at the workshop in Nairobi

ORGANISERS

Plan4all – Plan4all is a non-profit association sustaining and further enhancing the results of multiple research and innovation projects. It aggregates large open datasets related to planning activities in different specialisms areas transport, spatial and city planning, environment and tourism. Plan4all makes sure that open data are easily accessible for reuse, data are maintained and their quality is improved.
Club of Ossiach – The Club of Ossiach is a group of agriculturists, agribusiness managers, agriculture and forestry technologists, environmentalists and agricultural ICT specialists from around the world.
EO4Agri – The main objective of EO4AGRI is to catalyze the evolution of the European capacity for improving operational agriculture monitoring from local to global levels based on  information derived from Copernicus satellite observation data and through exploitation of associated geospatial and socio-economic information services. EO4AGRI assists the implementation of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) with special attention to the CAP2020 reform, to requirements of Paying Agencies, and for the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) processes.
DataBio – DataBio proposes to deploy a state of the art, big data platform “on top of the existing partners” infrastructure and solutions – the Big DATABIO Platform. The work will be continuous cooperation of experts from end user and technology provider companies, from bioeconomy and technology research institutes, and of other partners. In the pilots also associated partners and other stakeholders will be actively involved. The selected pilots and concepts will be transformed to pilot implementations utilizing co-innovative methods and tools where the bioeconomy sector end user experts and other stakeholders will give input to the user and sector domain understanding for the requirements specifications for ICT, Big Data and Earth Observation experts and for other solution providers in the consortium.
NextGEOSS – The NextGEOSS project will implement a federated data hub for access and exploitation of Earth Observation data, including user-friendly tools for data mining, discovery, access and exploitation. This data hub will be supported by a strong commitment to the engagement of Earth Observation and related communities, with the view of supporting the creation of innovative and business oriented applications.
EUXDAT – EUXDAT proposes an e-Infrastructure, which addresses agriculture, land monitoring and energy efficiency for a sustainable development, as a way to support planning policies. EUXDAT builds on existing mature components for solving them, by providing an advanced frontend, where users will develop applications on top of an infrastructure based on HPC and Cloud.
PoliVisu – Policy Development based on Advanced Geospatial Data Analytics and Visualisation. is a Research and Innovation project designed to evolve the traditional public policy making cycle using big data.  The aim is to enhance an open set of digital tools to leverage data to help public sector decision-making become more democratic by (a) experimenting with different policy options through impact visualisation and (b) using the resulting visualisations to engage and harness the collective intelligence of policy stakeholders for collaborative solution development.
AfriAlliance – Africa-EU Innovation Alliance for Water and Climate – Africa is one of the regions most in need of innovative solutions for tackling water and climate change-related challenges; yet many parts of Africa are also suffering from the lack of water-related skills and capacity as well as wide-spread institutional fragmentation. AfriAlliance aims to better prepare Africa for future climate change challenges by having African and European stakeholders work together in the areas of water innovation, research, policy, and capacity development. One of the objectives of AfriAlliance is to help improve water and climate monitoring and forecasting processes and tools in Africa. AfriAlliance is developing a triple sensor approach, combining input from 1) remote sensors (satellite, drones, etc.), 2) in-situ sensors (e.g. official weather stations) and 3) human sensors (e.g. citizens’ own mobiles devices and private weather stations) and co-locating these in an online GeoDataPortal.
CSEOL – Citizen Science Earth Observation Lab – The potential of using Citizen Science (CS) approaches and new digital technologies in a suitable setting for experimenting and generating new Earth Observation (EO) products and services is faced with various challenges. The Citizen Science Earth Observation Lab (CSEOL) therefore facilitates an open innovation process for generating multiple ideas on how to explore the CS potential for validating and exploiting EO data towards concrete, implementable projects. The CSEOL Call for Ideas is open now, on how to involve citizen scientists and the wider public in validating and exploiting Earth Observation data (deadline 5 May 2019).
AFarCloud – AFarCloud will provide a distributed platform for autonomous farming, which will allow the integration and cooperation of Cyber Physical Systems in real-time for increased agriculture efficiency, productivity, animal health, food quality and reduced farm labour costs. This platform will be integrated with farm management software and will support monitoring and decision-making, based on big data and real time data mining techniques. 

February – March, 2019 Publications in the Data Science Journal and new Special Collections

February-March 2019:  Publications in the Data Science Journal and new Special Collections

Title: Research of LOB Data Compression and Read-Write Efficiency in Oracle Database
Author: Jianjun Wang, Yingang Zhao, Gaochuan Liu
URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2019-008
Title: Bringing Citations and Usage Metrics Together to Make Data Count
Author: Helena Cousijn, Patricia Feeney, Daniella Lowenberg, Eleonora Presani, Natasha Simons
URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2019-009
Title: The Time Efficiency Gain in Sharing and Reuse of Research Data
Author: Tessa E. Pronk
URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2019-010
Title: Intelligent Infrastructure, Ubiquitous Mobility, and Smart Libraries – Innovate for the Future
Author:  Yi Shen
URL: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2019-011

Call for Nominations and Applications: Editor-in-Chief, Data Science Journal, Deadline 14 April

The Data Science Journal is currently accepting nominations and applications to become the Editor-in-Chief of the journal: https://datascience.codata.org/

Applications can be made through the Google form at https://goo.gl/forms/ey60x1N2jO9YM1rY2

The deadline for applications is 12 midnight GMT on Sun 14 April. Read More

Articles are appearing in two new Special Collections in the Data Science Journal.

Göttingen-CODATA RDM Symposium 2018

This special collection contains selected papers from the Göttingen-CODATA RDM Symposium 2018: the critical role of university RDM infrastructure in transforming data to knowledge: https://datascience.codata.org/collections/special/gottingen-codata-rdm-symposium/

Guest editors:
  • Simon Hodson
  • Jan Brase
  • Michael Witt
  • Liz Lyon
  • Devika P. Madalli

Research Data Alliance Results

This collection contains papers documenting research results and outcomes stemming from the Research Data Alliance (RDA) community and efforts: https://datascience.codata.org/collections/special/research-data-alliance-results/

Guest editors:

  • Leonardo Candela, Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dell’Informazione “A. Faedo”, Italian National Research Council, Pisa, Italy
  • Donatella Castelli, Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dell’Informazione “A. Faedo”, Italian National Research Council, Pisa, Italy
  • Emma Lazzeri, Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dell’Informazione “A. Faedo”, Italian National Research Council, Pisa, Italy
  • Paolo Manghi, Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dell’Informazione “A. Faedo”, Italian National Research Council, Pisa, Italy

Humans of Data 29

“I’m a data scientist. One needs to be aware that data is important to do science. But it comes with lots of issues, to make good quality results. It’s not just about collecting data and using it. Any data-driven solutions you try to develop, you need to understand the users and their different roles. A lot of work on the data is not just about the technology. It’s also about the social aspects. It’s not just about setting up a system and saying, ‘The scientists will use it.’

What I learned from my computing science experience is that every domain is different. If you want to develop a computing solution for a domain, you need to get familiar with the user environment, workflows, best practices, language and so on, and it’s important to get familiar with this before coming up with a solution. Every domain I have worked in, I had to get familiar with the practice, so the users will see the computing solution as integrated, and they will use it.”

The Carpentries is looking for the Regional Coordinator – Southern Africa

The Carpentries is an open global community teaching the skills and perspectives to turn data into knowledge. We build capacity in essential data and computational skills for conducting efficient, open, and reproducible research. Through our mission, we are committed to “training and fostering an active, inclusive, diverse community of learners and instructors who promote and model the importance of software and data in research.” We believe in a world where more people have the computational skills and perspectives to work with data to address their questions in science, scholarship, and society. We aim to build that world by scaling evidence-based teaching, creating inclusive environments, and building communities of practice based on open principles.

We seek an engaged and collaborative individual who shares this vision for a full-time position as The Carpentries Regional Coordinator – Southern Africa. This position will be based in South Africa (preferably in Pretoria, Johannesburg, or Potchefstroom) and will lead growth of The Carpentries community across the African continent, with a focus on Southern Africa.

In this role, you’ll help The Carpentries support our volunteer instructor community and member organizations to increase our collective impact on researchers across the continent. In Africa, we have trained almost 200 instructors and have run nearly 100 workshops in 10 countries in the last 5 years. The interest in workshops and instructor training is growing rapidly.

You will lead our community engagement efforts to develop and support The Carpentries community in Southern Africa, creating pathways for participation and increased communication. You will lead recruitment of new instructors and institutional members, drive The Carpentries’ awareness efforts in Southern Africa, mentor instructors, and coordinate workshops within the region. You may also assist with workshop coordination in other regions of the continent, with support from The Carpentries Workshops and Logistics Manager. You will build and strengthen local communities through engagement with user groups such as R-Ladies and Python Africa. You will join a global team of Regional Coordinators who manage workshop logistics, assist in communicating with hosts and instructors, respond to general workshop inquiries, and support growth of their regional communities. You will be supported by The Carpentries Workshop and Logistics Manager and will also work closely with The Carpentries Community Engagement Lead.

Qualifications:

The ideal candidate for this position is proficient in communication and organisational skills, is confident in working independently, takes initiative, collaborates well in a community environment, and has a keen eye for detail. Enthusiasm for the idea of teaching people to program is also essential. The successful candidate will get to meet and work with a global network of dedicated volunteer instructors. Additionally they will be involved in helping organizations find funding to coordinate workshops and pursue grant opportunities.

Required:

  • Undergraduate degree or at least 2 years in a higher education environment
  • Demonstrated leadership experience in professional or volunteer settings
  • Proven experience in organizing, planning, or administering groups or events
  • Understanding of the need for digital skill building in Africa
  • Some evidence of community building efforts
  • Excellent communication and time management skills
  • Strong administration skills and attention to detail
  • Customer-service orientation
  • Ability to work with minimal supervision
  • Able to work virtually with a distributed team
  • Passion for sharing digital research skills

Preferred:

  • Experience with The Carpentries
  • Understanding of nonprofits and their communication needs
  • Experience working with a volunteer community
  • Experience teaching technical workshops
  • Project management skills
  • Familiarity with one or more of the following: Git, GitHub, R, Python, SQL, The Unix Shell
  • Some experience with the research process

This is a remote position and will be paid by our 501(c)3 fiscal sponsor, Community Initiatives. Compensation will be ZAR 300,000 – 350,000, commensurate with experience. Work space and internet access will be provided by the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) at NWU Potchefstroom Campus if you are local to that site. Access through other partner institutes may be available. You will be working with The Carpentries as an independent contractor and will not be employed through NWU or SADiLaR.

The Carpentries is dedicated to providing a welcoming and supportive environment for all people, regardless of background or identity. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, citizenship, nationality, ethnic or social origin, pregnancy, familial status, veteran status, religion or belief, age, education, or socio-economic status. We encourage all qualified individuals to apply.

About The Carpentries

We’re a team of eleven staff and independent contractors, with a nine person Executive Council. We’re a fiscally sponsored project of the 501(c)3 Community Initiatives. We have a large community of instructors and contributors, and a much larger community of users. We use evidence-based teaching practices to teach the core skills for effective computational and data work, and we promote reproducible research and open science/open source widely.

To Apply

Please submit a cover letter and resume or CV to jobs@carpentries.org.

Application review will begin 19 May UTC 06:00. This position will remain open until filled.

Calls for Applications: OWSD PhD and Early Career Fellowships

OWSD is happy to announce that the 2019 Calls for Applications are now open for our two fellowship programmes, for PhD students and Early Career women scientists. We would like to ask your special assistance in helping OWSD to disseminate the Calls for Applications.

OWSD PhD Fellowship

The PhD Fellowship is offered to women scientists from Science and Technology Lagging Countries to undertake PhD research in the natural, engineering and information technology sciences at a host institute in another developing country in the South.

Costs covered include travel to the host country, tuition fees, board, accommodation and living expenses, and a special allowance for travel to international conferences. The programme is administered with funds generously provided by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and is offered in partnership with host institutes throughout the developing world.

Two types of fellowship are available:

  • A full-time fellowship (maximum 4 years funding), where the research is undertaken entirely at a host institute in another developing country in the South.
  • A sandwich fellowship, where the candidate must be a registered PhD student in her home country and undertakes part of her studies at a host institute in another developing country. The sandwich fellowship is awarded for a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 3 research visits at the host institute. OWSD particularly encourages candidates to consider the sandwich option, which allows them to earn the PhD in their home country while accessing specialist researchers and equipment abroad, at the host institute.

The full Call for Applications is attached here in both English and French, as well as a poster which can be printed and distributed at your institutes, or sent digitally. All information regarding the fellowship, including full eligibility and selection criteria, required application materials, and the link to the application form, can be found on the OWSD website at: 

https://owsd.net/career-development/phd-fellowship

Application materials are also available in French at: https://owsd.net/bourses-de-doctorat

The deadline for applications for this fellowship is May 30, 2019.

Questions regarding the fellowship may be sent to fellowships@owsd.net.

OWSD Early Career Fellowship

This Fellowship is a prestigious award of up to USD 50,000, generously provided by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and is offered to women scientists from eligible Science and Technology Lagging Countries (STLCs) who have completed their PhDs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects within the last 10 years and are employed at an academic or scientific research institute in one of the eligible countries. Early Career fellows are supported for two years to continue their research at an international level while based at their home institutes, to build up research groups that will attract international visitors, and to link with industry.

The fellowship provides funding for a wide range of expenses, including equipment, consumables, research visits, exchanges and programmes, teaching and assistance, information resources, product development and linking with industry, outreach, communications and networking, and other expenses. A full list of eligible expenses is available in the attached Call for Applications. Fellows will also take part in two training workshops on leadership and entrepreneurial skills.

All details regarding eligibility, specifications of the research projects, selection and how to apply are available at: https://owsd.net/career-development/early-career-women-scientists-ecws-fellowships

The deadline for completed online applications is April 30, 2019.

The official language for the application is English; however, all information about the programme will also be available in French shortly at: https://bit.ly/2IKPfRZ

Questions about this fellowship can be sent to earlycareer@owsd.net.