Author Archives: codata_blog

Mary Zborowski: Candidacy for CODATA Executive Committee

This is the third in the series of short statements from candidates in the forthcoming CODATA Elections. Mary Zborowski currently serves on the Executive Committee and is seeking re-election. She is nominated by the Canadian CODATA National Committee.

Mary Zborowski has served on CODATA’s Executive Committee since 2012 (CODATA GA, Taipei) mary and has been involved with CODATA Canada since 1998. Since 2004, she has been Executive Secretary for the Canadian National Committee for CODATA (CNC/CODATA). Under her management, the CNC has thrived and attracted new key participants from Canada’s principal granting agencies, government departments, collaborative working groups, data-related initiatives, and large scientific research projects such as NEPTUNE Canada and International Polar Year – which projects involve widespread collaboration and result in large data collections. Mary has also been involved with the International Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI) and was Executive Secretary to the Canadian Research Data Strategy Working Group, a multi-disciplinary group of universities, institutes, libraries, granting agencies, and individual researchers with a shared recognition of the pressing need to deal with Canadian data management issues.

Mary’s personal enthusiasm and commitment have combined with her organizational abilities to effectively promote many of CNC/CODATA’s initiatives, such as the Sangster Award for Early Career Professionals, communicated among all graduate universities in Canada and in similar networks, and awarded biennially in coordination with CODATA’s International Conference. She was editor of the bilingual serial, Report on Data Activities in Canada, presented to CODATA at its General Assemblies as evidence of Canada’s contribution to shared priorities. She has served on the Editorial Board of CODATA’s Data Science Journal, in which journal she also has published articles. She has contributed to CODATA’s Newsletters, and also to publications of own organization, the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and to its networks. NRC ranks CNC/CODATA as one of the highest ranked among its sponsored CNCs, thereby ensuring ongoing support of the Canadian National Committee as well as its involvement with CODATA International.

Mary’s background in atomic and molecular physics was followed by over 20 years’ experience in Library and Information Science, working extensively with databases, catalogues, collaborative projects, and delivery of information services to researchers. She is especially attuned to the complexities relating to the design and delivery of services during times of rapid technological change. Since 2008, Mary worked at the corporate level, preparing ministerial documents detailing NRC’s performance strategy and resultant impact to the Canadian innovation community. In recent years, she has planned and chairs sessions at international conferences held in Canada, for the purpose of promoting the interests of both CODATA and WDS.

Mary has been a technical advisor to CODATA on web and publishing matters since 1998 and it is through her personal and active involvement that CODATA’s web site was moved to a new and economical infrastructure in 2013, then redesigned and re-launched. She is the current Liaison officer to the CODATA Fundamental Constants Task Group and has participated in the organization of SciDataCon2014 in New Delhi, India, and SciDataCon2016 in Denver, CO, USA.

Paul Laughton: Candidacy for CODATA Executive Committee

This is the second in the series of short statements from candidates in the forthcoming CODATA Elections. Paul Laughton currently serves on the Executive Committee and is seeking re-election. He is nominated by the South African CODATA National Committee.

I am researcher and lecturer in the field of information and knowledge management. I have a post at the Department of Information and Knowledge Management at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa as a Senior Lecturer. I have a passion for data, particularly the management of data, and conducted my PhD thesis on the management of research data. I am actively involved in the research data sphere in South Africa and Southern Africa and work along-side a number of bodies in South Africa that promote research data. I have for a long time (since 2008) been involved in the Early Career Data Professional activities, which was a wonderful introduction to the functioning of CODATA and the individuals that contribute to the great work done by CODATA. Being elected as an Ordinary Committee member between 2014 and 2016 was a great experience and gave me the opportunity to learn from the many capable individuals that serve on this committee, I would like to stand for re-election as I believe I have more to offer this community and my African regional perspective and Early Career focus brings an important dynamic to the Executive Committee. I believe the future of research data has so much potential and poses number of complex challenges that require a different kind of thinking. I hope my contribution to this committee assists in taking science closer to the next phase of inquiry.

John Wood: Candidacy for CODATA Executive Committee

This is the first in the series of short statements from candidates in the forthcoming CODATA Elections. John Wood has been prominent in the data community for a number of years. He has served on the Council of the Research Data Alliance and chaired the influential ‘Riding the Wave Report’ for the European Commission. He is currently Secretary General of the Association of Commonwealth Universities which has been a strong supporter of the CODATA-RDA School of Research Data Science <http://www.codata.org/working-groups/research-data-science-summer-schools>. John is nominated by the UK CODATA National Committee.

I am putting myself forward for election since I firmly believe in the power of data sharing to
potentially change the lives of peoples and countries in the developing world and the crucial role of CODATA in helping this transformation to take place. This may sound idealistic but I have been working as an adviser to the European Commission for several years to ensure that Open Science is linked to development and the delivery of the current United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Among other things I would see my chief role on the executive of helping CODATA deliver its strategy in this area since I have extensive experience of working in developing countries in addition to having many years of dealing with government officials world-wide.

My background is as an academic materials scientist with an interest in non-equilibrium processing and structural characterisation using various diffraction and thermal techniques. My last full time academic post was as head of the Faculty of Engineering, Imperial College London.

Prior to that I was chief executive of the UK Central Laboratories based at the Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire where I first became aware of the impact of data and data sharing in the early 200s. I was the lead Research Council spokesman on Open Access and appeared before UK and European Parliamentary bodies and publishers’ organisations to defend Open Access. At the same time I became chair of the European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures and suggested and produced the first European Roadmap. During this time I became chair of the Support for Research Committee of the Joint Information Services Committee of the UK which supported the Data Curation Centre and a number of institutional repositories in Universities. As chief executive I had responsibility for the UK interest in a number of global projects including in the US, Japan, India and China.

The European Commission asked me to chair two important high level boards towards the end of 2000s. The first, the European Research Area Board produced a large number of recommendations that have been subsequently been incorporated into Horizon 2020 especially those relating to embedding e-science globally. The second produced the “Riding the Wave” report that ultimately led to the creation of the Research Data Alliance of which I am the global co-chair. I was also responsible for the follow up report “The Data Harvest.” As co-chair of the RDA I have had extensive discussions with the president of CODATA and the executive director on how we can support each other. I have a personal interest in the joint RDA-CODATA activity on “Data for development.” I will have served my turn as co-chair next spring and I wish to devote more time to the area of data for delivery of the SDGs in the future.

My current role is as Secretary-General of the Association of Commonwealth Universities which is a group of over 500 universities across the world with the majority being in developing countries. In this role I have become familiar with many of the issues facing developing countries and have given extensive talks on the need for Open Science and in these countries. I was asked by the South African Government to chair their Research Roadmap Report three years ago where we did extensive analysis of the needs of both South African and the rest of Southern Africa with respect to data sharing.

I currently chair the Advisory Board of ATTRACT which brings together several European Laboratories (EIROFORUM) together to exploit Open Science for Open Innovation focusing on sensors, instrumentation and data. Many of the projects supported to data are linked with societal challenges.

I am a committed internationalist having worked and visited with colleagues in every continent (except Antarctica). I am regularly asked by governments and research funding agencies in other countries to participate in review panels so I have a wide view of the context of how decisions are made globally. Perhaps to emphasise the point I also have honorary doctorates from Universities in Romania, India, Ghana and Nigeria in addition to a federal award from the German government. I believe it would be good to use much of this experience to support the work of CODATA.

3rd LEARN Workshop, Helsinki, June 2016

This post is a syndicated copy of the one at http://citingbytes.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/3rd-learn-workshop-helsinki-june-2016.html and was written by Sarah Callaghan, Editor-in-Chief of the Data Science Journal

Open Data in a Big Data World

The 3rd LEARN (Leaders Activating Research Networks) workshop on Research Data Management, “Make research data management policies work” was held in Helsinki on Tuesday 28th June. I was invited wearing my CODATA hat (as Editor-in-Chief for the Data Science Journal) to give the closing keynote about the Science International Accord “Open Data in a Big Data World“.

The problem with doing closing talks is that so much of what I wanted to say had pretty much already been said by someone during the course of the day – sometimes even by me during the breakout sessions! Still, it was a really interesting workshop, with excellent discussion (despite the pall that Brexit cast over the coffee and lunchtime conversation – but that’s a topic for another time).

There were three breakout session possibilities, of which the timings meant that you could go to two of them.

I started with Group 3: Making possible and encouraging the reuse of data: incentives needed. This is my day job – taking data in from researchers, making it understandable and reusable, and figuring out ways to give them credit and rewards for doing so. And my group has been doing this for more than 2 decades, so I’m afraid I might have gone off on a bit of a rant. Regardless, we covered a lot, though mainly the old chestnuts of the promotion and tenure system being fixated on publications as the main academic output, the requirements for standards (especially for metadata – acknowledging just how difficult it would be to come up with a universal metadata standard applicable to all research data), and the fact that repositories can control (to a certain extent) the technology, but culture change still needs to happen. Though there were some positives on the culture change – I noted that journals are now pushing DOIs for data, and this has had an impact on people coming to us to get DOIs.

Next breakout group I went to was Group 1: Research Data services planning, implementation and governance. What surprised me in this session (maybe it shouldn’t have) was just how far advanced the UK is when it comes to research data management policies and the likes, in comparison to other countries. This did mean that me and my other UK colleagues did get quizzed a fair bit about our experiences, which made sense. I had a bit of a different perspective from most of the other attendees – being a discipline-specific repository means that we can pick and choose what data we take in, unlike institutional repositories, who have to be more general. On being asked about what other services we provide, I did manage to name-drop JASMIN, in the context of a UK infrastructure for data analysis and storage.

I think the key driver in the UK for getting research data management policies working was the Research Councils, and their policies, but also their willingness to stump up the cash to fund the work. A big push on institutional repositories was EPSRC’s putting the onus on research institutions to manage EPSRC-funded research data. But the increasing importance of data, and people’s increased interest in it, is coming from a wide range of drivers – funders, policies, journals, repositories, etc.

I understand that the talks and notes from the breakouts will be put up on the workshop website, but they’re not up as of the time of me writing this. You can find the slides from my talk here.

CODATA Mourns Former President, David Abir

David Abir (1922-2016), CODATA President 1990-1994

The CODATA community recently learnt with regret of the death of David Abir, former CODATA President.

David Abir, was elected CODATA President at the 1990 General Assembly in Columbus, Ohio, USA. He served as a President for four years. He was an aeronautical engineer with special interest in properties of engineering materials and fluid dynamics.

‘During his Presidency,’ observes John Rumble, former President of CODATA, ‘Abir worked assiduously to ensure inclusiveness for all CODATA members and preparing CODATA to be a key participant in the emerging global information and connectivity revolution.’

In CODATA activities, he was prominent in the ‘Industrial Data Commission’:

This Commission was established in 1984 to guide the Executive Committee on the data needs of the industry. It was chaired by Jack Westbrook, a US physicist who had a long career as an industrial materials expert for General Electric, and included members who worked in the chemical, aeronautics, metallurgical, and other industries. Among other activities, the Commission conducted in 1985 an International Workshop on Materials Data Systems for Engineering in Schluchsee, Germany, that addressed industrial needs and recommended to start several new CODATA activities. One of its recommendations was to set up a Task Group on Materials Database Standards, later broadened to include other aspects of database management.

The CODATA Industrial Data Commission in the 1980s: David Abir is seated in the centre.

David Lide, who was an active member of CODATA during Abir’s era, writes: ‘I worked with David Abir for many years, both before and during his term as CODATA President. He made many contributions to CODATA, especially by encouraging more emphasis on data of engineering importance, in keeping with his career as an aeronautical engineer. Moreover, he was a voice of reason in the sometimes contentious debates over the directions that CODATA should take.’

Gordon Wood, also an active member during Abir’s era, writes: ‘Having first met David Abir at the CODATA Conference in Jerusalem in 1984, we worked closely together from 1990-94 as President and Secretary General respectively. David took his responsibilities very seriously and consistently sought what was best for CODATA’s future, both scientifically and organizationally. I will remember David as a gentleman and colleague.’

David Abir at the CODATA General Assembly in 1990

The Israeli National CODATA Committee wishes to point out some additional activities and achievements of Prof. Abir:

Prof David Abir (1922-2016) contributed during his long career as scientist and engineer to numerous activities for the benefit of his country and the scientific community. Starting in 1943, he served as a chief instructor of the aero club of Palestine; later he served in the Israeli Air Force, when it was formed in 1948; he was one of the founders of the Faculty of Aeronautical Engineering at the Technion, The Israeli Institute of Technology, where he was also the Dean of Faculty in 1962-64. He joined Tel-Aviv University in 1972, and was Associate Dean of the Faculty of Engineering (1972-1980). David Abir was a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, London, and a Fellow of The Institution of Mechanical Engineers, London, both since 1965.

Abir was deputy chairman of the Israel Space Agency, Ministry of Science and Technology (1983-7), and its director general in 1985-87. He was an active member of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) of ICSU. Until his retirement he served as the chairman of the National Committee for Space Research (1972- 2005) and a chairman of the Israeli National CODATA Committee. Abir continued to serve the scientific community for many years, even after his formal retirement.

Reuven Granot, a member of Israeli CODATA Committee: ‘As a member of The National CODATA Committee, I worked with Prof. David Abir during the last three decades. His kindness, openness to help and his willing to share his enormous experience and knowledge with others was outstanding. I shall remember David, as a close friend and scientific leader to follow.’

The CODATA Executive Committee and Officers wish to express their profound regret at the passing of this distinguished, highly-esteemed colleague and friend. Our condolences go to David’s family and friends.

Data Diplomacy: Political and Social Dimensions of Data Collection and Data Sharing

This post is by Angela Murillo, a member of CODATA Early Career Data Professionals Group, and Doctoral Candidate and Research Associate at the Metadata Research Center of the School of Information and Library Science at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

WUN – Data Diplomacy Workshop engages scientists to consider diplomacy in relation to scientific data.

On October 28-19^th, 2015, I had opportunity to attend the WUN (World University Network) Data Diplomacy workshop titled “Data Diplomacy: Political and Social Dimensions of Data Collection and Data Sharing” organized by the University of Rochester and the Worldwide University Network. This workshop gathered a group of scientists and diplomats representing various disciplines who spent two days sharing experiences, expertise, and ideas in regards to data diplomacy. I was fortunate to attend as a representative of the CODATA Early Career Data Professional Working Group.

The workshop was held at the New York Academy of Sciences. For two days, we discussed the many aspects important to data diplomacy including:

What is data diplomacy?
Data Democratization
Data Governance and Regulation
Data Diplomacy for Data Curation
Data Sharing and Standards
Science Diplomacy

Dr. Timothy D. Dye, from the University of Rochester, School of Medicine & Dentistry organized and led the workshop. Additionally Dr. Jane Gateway from the University of Rochester Office of Global Engagement assisted with leading the program. Ten scientists and diplomats from around the world attending representing various disciplines including:

Political Science and International Relations
Computer Science and Information Science
Earth Science
Epidemiology

Participants of the WUN Data Diplomacy Workshop at the New York Academy of Sciences.

Through the discussion, we were able to establish 1) drivers for data diplomacy and 2) a working definitions for data diplomacy. Drivers for data diplomacy included a need to understand barriers and opportunities of complex data that is now available, as well as understanding how data is a driver of local and global acts, and how it allows for new relationships. Additionally we established some working definitions of data diplomacy including: 1) “data diplomacy creates, supports, or maintains technical or social relationships to mitigate barriers to action among stakeholders by enabling the use of data for societal benefit” and 2) “data diplomacy incorporates skills derived from diplomacy and data science with stakeholder needs, and recognizes that data itself is now an agent”. These definitions and attributes are being developed as we work on several publications in relation to Data Diplomacy.

Lastly, we developed a work plan which includes research to 1) describe the basic concepts of data diplomacy, 2) describe governance, standards, practices, and frameworks relevant to data diplomacy, 3) identify application of local diplomacy, and 4) create a set of use cases and identify empirical evidence of data diplomacy.

This workshop was a wonderful opportunity to contribute to an important discussion and new and evolving area of study; the intersection of diplomacy, data science, and stakeholders. Those who attended continue moving forward with our work plan, and hope to be able to report on publications as soon they are available.

CODATA TG Anthropometry and Special Populations activities at AHFE 2015

Anthropometry is the science of measuring body dimensions, and has evolved over the last decades from taking linear measures to 3D data capture and processing.

The objective of the CODATA Task Group on Anthropometric Data and Engineering (the previous incarnation of the current TG) was to
promote dissemination and development of knowledge in anthropometry to contribute to the improvement of health, the safety and of the well being of all people. A major achievement of that TG to this end was to assist the establishment of WEAR (the World Engineering Anthropometry Resource) project.

The 2015 Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (AHFE) Conference in Las Vegas, USA was
held under the auspices of 25 distinguished international Boards consisting of 583 members from 43 countries. The conference included 223 parallel sessions, with 2988 submissions from
researchers in 64 countries, working in academia, industry and government. There were 1420
paper presentations and 185 posters included in the conference proceedings. AHFE 2015 was
attended by over 1500 participants.

The CODATA Task Group on Anthropometry, Fit and Accommodation for Special Populations met in
conjunction with this conference and discussed the following issues:

The TG has created a shareable dataset which will be distributed through WEAR.
The TG is working on a publication called “Sustainable Sizing” to be published by the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES).
The TG has created a presentation to be given to Anthropometry Resource Australia SIG (ARASIG) at the International Ergonomics Association (IEA) in August 2015 that talks about how data are used by ASTM and industry.
The TG will use this presentation to write a paper to be published by CODATA Data Science Journal.

In addition, presentations were given by:
Dr. Chang Shu, ‘Data processing and analysis for the 2012 Canadian Forces 3D anthropometric survey’.

This paper has been published in the HFES proceedings as Chang Shua, Pengcheng Xia, Allan Keefe, ‘Data processing and analysis for the 2012 Canadian Forces 3D anthropometric survey’, Procedia Manufacturing (6th International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (AHFE 2015) and the Affiliated Conferences, AHFE 2015): http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.promfg.2015.07.813

Kathleen Robinette & Daisy Veitch
Chairs of the CODATA Task Group on Anthropometric Data and Engineering

Call for Papers – Data Science Journal

The Data Science Journal is a peer-reviewed, open access, electronic journal dedicated to the advancement of data science and its application in policies, practices and management of Open Data.

We are currently soliciting submissions for papers on a wide range of data science topics, across the whole range of computational, natural and social science, and the humanities. The scope of the journal includes descriptions of data systems, their implementations and their publication, applications, infrastructures, software, legal, reproducibility and transparency issues, the availability and usability of complex datasets, and with a particular focus on the principles, policies and practices for data.

All data is in scope, whether born digital or converted from other sources, and all research disciplines are covered. Data is a cross-domain, cross-discipline topic, with common issues, regardless of the domain it serves. The Data Science Journal publishes a variety of article types (research papers, practice papers, review articles and essays). The Data Science Journal also publishes data articles, describing datasets or data compilations, if the potential for reuse of the data is significant or if considerable efforts were required in compilation. Similarly, the Data Science Journal also publishes descriptions of online simulation, database, and other experiments, partnering with digital repositories on ‘meta articles’ or ‘overlay articles’, which link to and allow visualisation of the data, thereby adding an entirely new dimension to the communication and exchange of data research results and educational materials.

For further information, and to submit a manuscript, please visit http://datascience.codata.org/

CODATA Collection in Zenodo: Recent Reports

For a little while now, CODATA has been using Zenodo as a repository for our most important reports, statements and some presentations.

Zenodo is an openly-available digital repository ‘launched within the OpenAIREplus project as part of a Europe-wide research infrastructure.’ See the About and FAQs for further information. Like many innovative parts of the data infrastructure, Zenodo is still developing a sustainability model: we certainly hope that it is around for the long term.

Zenodo has a clean and attractive interface and it is easy to use. Above all, we like it because it allows the creation of Communities or Collections, assigns DOIs and provides Altmetrics.

CODATA Reports in Zenodo

Below is a list of the recent CODATA publications in Zenodo.

The Value of Open Data Sharing: A CODATA White Paper for the Group on Earth Observations: http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.33830

This White Paper was prepared for the GEO-XII Plenary in Mexico City by the GEO Participating Organization CODATA (the ICSU Committee on Data for Science and Technology). Through showcasing diverse benefits of open Earth observations data, the paper is designed to facilitate the process of transitioning from restricted data policies to more open policies for government data. This document was submitted to GEO-XII for its information and use. Supplementary case studies are most welcome.

CODATA Report: Current Best Practice for Research Data Management Policies: http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.27872

Report on Current Best Practice for Research Data Management Policies commissioned from CODATA by the Danish e-Infrastructure Cooperation and the Danish Digital Library and submitted in May 2014.

This document gives the 2014 self-consistent set of values of the constants and conversion factors of physics and chemistry recommended by the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA). These values are based on a least-squares adjustment that takes into account all data available up to 31 December 2014. The recommended values may also be found at http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Constants/index.html

This paper provides a brief summary of the work of the CODATA Task Group on Fundamental Physical Constants to produce the 2014 CODATA Recommended Values of the Fundamental Physical Constants.

CODATA Data Sharing Principles in Developing Countries: http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22117

The ‘Data Sharing Principles in Developing Countries’, or ‘Nairobi Data Sharing Principles’ were developed by participants of the CODATA Workshop on Open Data for Science and Sustainability in Developing Countries held on 6-8 August 2014 at UNESCO in the United Nations Offices in Nairobi, Kenya.

CODATA Uniform Description System for Materials on the Nanoscale v1.0: http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20688

Uniform Description System for Materials on the Nanoscale v1.0, prepared by the CODATA-VAMAS Working Group On the Description of Nanomaterials.

RDA Plenary 6: ‘Allez les filles’!

This post is by Elizabeth Griffin, chair of the CODATA Data at Risk Task Group, and co-chair of the related RDA Interest Group on Data Rescue.

RDA Plenary 6 took place in balmy late September in the centre of Paris, within the confines of CNAM (Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers) and just down the road from the République. Inaugurated in 1794, CNAM took over a deserted Priory and formally opened in 1802.

As well as housing a museum of innovations relevant to science and industry, it also (and primarily) serves as an adult educational centre, with emphases on practical training in science and engineering on the one hand and management and social sciences on the other. Whether it rose adequately to the challenge of a sudden influx of nearly 600 RDA delegates is more subjective. rda6_IMG_0605_(c)cap_digital

A marquee in the central court provided what should have been a good meeting point for meal-time discussions, but the wooden floor and harsh surrounds offered abysmal acoustics, encouraging many to retreat outside and perch on the stone window-sills (sunshine permitting). Whether delegates succeeded in locating and reaching the right meeting-rooms (either conventional classrooms or formal tiered theatres) allocated to their sessions depended on perseverance as well as physical fitness, offering a learning curve as steep as the flights of stairs. But none of that affected the characteristic-RDA zest of the meeting, which included the (now regular) admix of numerous IG, WG, BoF and formal plenary sessions.

What signs of the Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, suggested by such proximity to the République? My French dictionary (1988 edition) offers no equivalent to `sorority’ or `sisterhood’, and a hard-hitting talk by Dame Wendy Hall to a Women-in-RDA breakfast meeting hinted that the emergence of women in both science and practical society is still Work in Progress. Women are climbing the scientific career-ladders, but not as quickly as some of the pointers anticipate. Where, then, is France?

Yet evidence of Progress abounded, even at the opening session: an impressive Keynote presentation by Barbara Ryan (Earth Observations, Geneva), “Unleashing the Power of Earth Observations – Together”, encouraged collaboration not competition, while the Minister of State for Digital Technology in the French Ministry of Economy, Industry and Digital Technology, who made a flying visit to give a welcome address, proved – much to our surprise – to be a young working mother. Allez les filles !

Women carry quite a load between them at plenaries, this one being no exception. It would be instructive to see a gender disaggregation of Chairs, and to look for any bias between (for instance) those addressing social and educational matters on the one hand, and science, engineering and data management on the other.

Do women have the Liberté to select their chosen and fulfilling careers, or is true Egalité still a dream for a future that must coin a new word to represent the “togetherness” of our scientific efforts? Add does it matter? Yes, in some ways the matter is crucial.

Organizations, whether for research or for data management, share a common structure that is inevitably somewhat vertical, and in which actual power lies with those who are designers and builders. We don’t intentionally spend resources duplicating what is already extant; life is too short, and we accept and apply what is provided, be it a computer system, a hierarchy of data management, an educational set-up or a scheme for raising funds.

Even apart from some recognized differences in thought processes between “male” and “female” mind-types, other biologically-related forces simply cannot be ignored, like body language (oh for uniform attire!) or a reputed capacity for multi-tasking. And if there is one place that needs to embrace multi-tasking it is surely the RDA. Greater aggregation, or clustering, of the over-many topics that are now registered as Interest Groups would enhance the complementary aspects of a number of rather similar-looking sessions, while more plenaries would result in greater emphasis on the broader picture and thence on the raison d’être of the RDA.

CODATA Blog

News from the CODATA community and from Simon Hodson, CODATA Executive Director