This blog post comes from Elizabeth Griffin, chair of the CODATA Data at Risk Task Group.

Pursuing its objective to raise awareness of the imperative scientific need to find, rescue and digitize pre-digital observations for the benefit of research into long-term changes in the natural world, the Data At Risk Task Group (DAR-TG) went east recently to lead a Panel Discussion at the conference on Digital Preservation and Development of Trusted Digital Repositories held in New Delhi. Organized jointly by the UK-based Alliance for Permanent Access and the Indian Centre of Excellence for Digital Preservation, the meeting drew participants from around the world as well as from the length and breadth of India. The composition of the Panel was an even match of western-based representatives and Indian counterparts, and gelled remarkably well in the circumstances. The Panel offered answers to pre-set questions, and took more from the floor, on themes that challenged the TG’s declared need for recovering and digitizing historic data, and its assumptions that projects so geared would be conducted successfully. We debated how to convince skeptics of the scientific value of spending resources on heritage data, what results might be expected by incorporating them into modern research, and what major problems could be foreseen and how to tackle them. The unanimous response was examples, examples, examples – cite projects that returned new scientific knowledge which could not have been gained by any other means. Playing the devil’s advocate is a powerful method of reinforcing determination, and DAR-TG has since been happy to recruit one of the Indian panelists and one of the audience as TG members. A conference delegate from South Africa has also joined the TG.

Where does India stand in regard to endangered historic scientific data? More pertinently, perhaps, one should ask how well a country of such size, diversity and infrastructural challenges can dedicate time and resources into what may seem to be a rather esoteric pursuit. Yet as the contributions to the main conference amply demonstrated, India is making impressive strides towards establishing standards and practices in things digital at formal levels, though it was harder to judge commitment to physical data recovery since actual data-gatherers were in something of a minority at such a meeting. The data-rescue projects that were presented revealed the same problems of dedicated funding and recognition that undermine corresponding projects in the so-called developed world, and in India they are of course additionally complicated by the size of the tasks, even by the sheer geographical diversity to be spanned.

One step at a time is always sound advice in such circumstances, and DAR-TG plans to heed that advice at SciDataCon 2014 in New Delhi next November (held jointly with CODATA’s own General Assembly), where it hopes to organize a Session dedicated to the rescue of pre-digital data in India, calling on representatives of Indian scientific teams (already identified by our new member from Lucknow University) to describe prevailing situations in their own fields and seeking to formulate a plan for a national data-rescue initiative. Such a session will provide a clearer picture of the amounts and kinds of pre-digital data in India that definitely need to be recovered, some idea of the priorities to be attached to them, and the potential for doing so at government, university or private levels.

India also has vast tracts of pre-digital cultural data extending back across more than 5 millennia, covering a huge range of climatic conditions and embracing not only distinct regional cultures but also four major world religions. It could be argued that ancient scripts and pictures are just as much in need of cataloguing and protecting as are pre-digital scientific records, but in the face of such enormous challenges DAR-TG will do well to concentrate on scientific areas and media that are familiar, in the hope that the examples that are set and the good results that are achieved will feed into national programmes to improve the preservation and dissemination prospects of its cultural assets too.

This blog post is written by Daisy Veitch, co-chair of the CODATA Anthropometric Data and Engineering and founder/CEO of SHARP Dummies.

The objective of the CODATA Task Group on Anthropometric Data and Engineering and the WEAR (World Engineering Anthropometry Resource) project is to promote distribution and development of knowledge in anthropometry and to contribute to the improvement of health and safety of all people.

In August 2009 in Beijing a web portal was opened by the president of the International Ergonomics Association that gives access to anthropometric data and tools to use it. This was co-sponsored by CODATA. The initial site contains a limited set. Having said that the ‘limited set’ contains about 130 datasets including the North American portion of the CAESAR database (which is the most comprehensive, high quality anthropometric dataset ever collected). The plan is to continue to expand the data and tools over the years.

A WEAR/CODATA meeting was held on 18 November 2013 in Long Beach, California, USA. The participants also attended the 3D body scanning conference held in Long Beach on 19-20 November 2013, where two WEAR sessions were also held.

During the 18^th November meeting, WEAR members discussed the possibility of changing membership categories, particularly to make it easier for students to be a part of the organization, they also looked at a viable social media strategy to ensure that WEAR is able to spread information easily on the web and provide a more accessible platform for those retrieving WEAR data. We encourage people to sign up for newsletters at www.bodysizeshape.com. Additionally, those present discussed the new datasets which were added to the WEAR portal and made plans for future uploads. WEAR representatives appointed new officers and made plans to attend the CODATA meeting in India in 2014, SciDataCon 2014.

The 3D body scanning conference held on 19-20^th November 2013 and its parallel exhibition was held to fulfil the demand for an international event focused on 3D human body scanning technologies, 3D human body measurement methods and applications.

This event is a mixed technical and sales platform dedicated to these specific fields that reaches a very broad cross- disciplinary audience. In the last two decades, 3D scanning technologies developed in other industrial sectors were successfully applied to the measurement and scanning of the human body. Methods and techniques are continuously ameliorated, more efficient and performing scanning systems are produced every year and new software tools are developed unceasingly. Development drivers include price, so there is an ever increasing need to develop awareness about quality assurance and as well as quality tools themselves.  The international conference and exhibition on 3D body scanning technologies serves as a platform for the information on the latest developments and interesting applications in various sectors, as well as, for building relationships and exchanging ideas between manufacturers, users, developers and researchers from around the world.

Professor Kath Robinette, Co-Chair of this CODATA task group was the keynote speaker – The keynote speech highlighted that new technology is valued for reasons including that it looks impressive, that it enables us to do something better or cheaper, that it is easier to use and that it enables us to do something we couldn’t do before. However, there was a key lesson to be examined among these points. Dr Robinette identified that just because a technology is newer, it does not automatically make it better than the older technology.

Dr Robinette further explored anthropometric technology and its evolution during her presentation and then discussed where the goals and aims which are associated with 3D scanning are directing the science of anthropometry. It was explained that although 3D modelling is a highly effective enabler in determining shape, volume and contours, 1D instruments like the tape measure are still markedly superior over 3D imaging in terms of measurements like circumference. The speech sent the message that although 3D imaging is a crucial implement to use to enhance studies in the field of anthropometry, it is not yet enhanced enough to disregard the importance of getting information from multiple sources including 1D traditional measurement. The most effective way of gaining accurate models is achieved through the use of multiple data collection including fit data.  She said that made-to-measure, size prediction from scans, virtual try-on models, digitial human models and similar technologies continue to be developed and fail.  Each going out of business eventually.  Why?  Because they do not include fit measurements.  You need to measure fit if you want to predict it and the future of anthropometry needs to include fit measurements.  She gave many examples and illustrations about why fit knowledge is essential to success. Dr Robinette’s abstract can be found here for interested parties: 3D Body Scanning, Past and Future.

During the CODATA/WEAR meeting some issues regarding global sizing were highlighted, particularly that of creating a universal sizing system. Members acknowledged the difficulty of sharing products designed for different ethnic populations especially from the fit and the safety perspective. It was suggested that the standardizing data collection for body size and shape and collecting matching fit metrics for these populations would be very desirable to make fit predictions. In essence we want to add fit mapping to national anthropometric surveys and standardize the data collection process to enable effective global sharing.  A fit mapping project has been proposed so that populations can be compared and predictions could be made more accurately. A base for this is the Sizing Up Australia project. Thanks in part to CODATA support, the Global Fit Map group will have its first meeting in Oklahoma City in March of this year, then meet again in India in 2014 at the CODATA-WDS Conference, SciDataCon 2014. Participants will include Australia, Brazil, India, Korea, Nigeria and USA.
Without the help of CODATA, WEAR would never be able to share high quality anthropometric data with members all over the world. This collaboration is fantastic because it makes our information accessible with the click of a button. Our involvement with CODATA will ensure that anthropometric data is readily available to access, and encourage more involvement with our work.

The WEAR/CODATA partnership provides a platform where the task group can share a cohesive goal for leading researchers to collaborate together. It also allows experts to work on projects as a team, which is excellent because the workload for researchers is often too large for just one person. This ensures that expert information is shared and a high standard of work is maintained. The most recent success of the WEAR/CODATA collaboration is the publication of Sizing Up Australia – The Next Step; a report which focuses on the evidence and method for developing and conducting the first Australian Body Sizing Survey. Thanks to CODATA, this has led to a potential international survey about body sizing and fit mapping referred to earlier. The WEAR/CODATA platform has not only brought people together, it has created action. It has enabled us to disseminate data, but more importantly it is influencing how and what data is collected throughout the world.

Fedor Kuznetsov at the CODATA 2012 Conference

It is with considerable regret that the CODATA community learnt of the death of Academician and CODATA Vice-President, Professor Fedor Kuznetsov on 4 February 2014.  Fedor Kuznetsov was a long-standing and committed servant of CODATA (ICSU Committee on Data for Science and Technology): he made a substantial contribution to CODATA and to international scientific collaboration around data issues.

Fedor Kuznetsov was a world-class scientist, respected internationally for his scientific and technical contributions. His abilities as an administrator and successful Director of the Nikolaev Institute of Inorganic Chemistry (NIIC), Novosibirsk, led this institute to achieve world-wide renown.  He played important roles in the business of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and also in the Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences.

For several decades, Fedor worked very hard to develop international cooperation whether bilaterally or multilaterally through organizations like the Asia Pacific Academy of Materials, which he had served as a founding member as well as President.

Through CODATA, he made significant contributions to such international collaboration, through his participation in the Executive Committee, as Vice-President and by establishing various Task Groups on Nanotechnology and Gas Hydrates.  In 1984 he was a member of the CODATA Industrial Data Commission, established ‘to guide the Executive Committee on the data needs of industry’. [See CODATA@45 Years, p. 25]  In 1996 he was elected Vice-President of CODATA.  He served on the Executive Committee from 2004 to 2010 and was elected Vice-President for a second time in 2010.

As Director of the NIIC, Fedor led ‘a strong program in several areas of materials science: theoretical modeling; searching for new micro-electronic materials; developing quantitative methods for analyzing inorganic materials; and pursuing novel preparation techniques. A prominent physical chemist and materials scientist, he was instrumental in the development of a data bank on properties of electronic technology materials.’ [See CODATA@45 Years, p. 31]

From 2000 he chaired the CODATA Task Group on Data for Natural Gas Hydrates, which had the objective of developing a comprehensive information system on all aspects of these substances’.  The Group aimed to find ‘ways to use modern information technologies for data and knowledge sharing to: achieve understanding of the role of natural gas hydrates in natural processes; find rational ways of exploiting gas hydrates resources; and prevent hazards resulting from uncontrolled eruptions of gases from gas hydrates deposits. Having received an ICSU grant as a measure of the importance of their work, the Group developed and published the Gas Hydrate Markup Language (GHML) in 2006 with a view to facilitating the interchange of rapidly increasing amounts of gas hydrate data among researchers worldwide.’ [See CODATA@45 Years, p. 38]

CODATA Past President Krishan Lal writes:

For me, Fedor was a long standing close friend for the last more than three decades. We successfully pursued collaborative research in some of the most advanced areas and jointly organized bilateral as well as international conferences in Russia and India. His scientific calibre and desire to link strong groups for ambitious projects was very remarkable.

Only last year the Indian National Science Academy (INSA) elected him as a Foreign Fellow. He was one of the four Foreign Fellows elected in 2013, including one Nobel Laureate. I had suggested to him to come to India in December to participate in our Anniversary meeting, but he promised to visit us in 2014. Unfortunately this will not happen now.

On personal level I have lost one of my closest friends.

Former CODATA Executive Director, Kathleen Cass writes:

I was very saddened when I received the news that Fedor had passed away. Justifiably and deservedly so, many tributes have been paid this week to Fedor for his outstanding scientific achievements during his long professional career both within and beyond the CODATA community.

For me I will always remember first and foremost the personal attributes of Fedor. I admired and respected his ability to understand different cultures, his political astuteness and sensitivity, his skill at making people feel at ease with expressing their opinions—even more so if those opinions differed from those of Fedor and his clever and intellectual wit. Above all, I  admired Fedor’s strong conviction: if he truly believed in an activity he would professionally and eloquently defend it and successfully build support for the activity.

I recall with great affection and sincere appreciation his support to me during my years in CODATA.  In short I thank you, Fedor, for your friendship and it is this friendship that I will truly miss.

Fedor Kuznetsov will be remembered by his CODATA colleagues for his good humour and wit, his warm personal greetings, his insightful contributions to Executive Committee debates and his indefatigable attitude toward personal health issues when they arose periodically.  He will be sorely missed, but his wisdom and passion for CODATA and international data science will continue to inspire us.

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 Fedor’s family and friends.

During the recent GEO Plenary, an article appeared on SciDevNet that communicated the case for the importance of such data sharing initiatives.

Paul Uhlir, Director of the Board on Research Data and Information at the US National Academy of Sciences, and one of the CODATA Co-Chairs of the GEO Data Sharing Working Group

In the article, Paul Uhlir—one of the CODATA co-chairs of the GEO Data Sharing Working Group—makes the point that for developing countries, the belief that government data may represent a lucrative revenue stream is deeply misguided.’  Sometimes government and research data from developing countries is seen as a valuable commodity that can be monetized: ‘but, quite frankly, open [data] policies are much more economically generative than closed ones.  By hoarding the data they’re minimising massively its value for other uses and shooting themselves in the foot.’

This is particularly strongly the case for geospatial data.  As the article points out:

The potential of such data that incudes geographic positioning information, including satellite imagery, to aid fields such as disaster response, agriculture, conservation and city planning far outweighs any potential value from selling the information.

The articles also highlights the work of the the CODATA Global Roads Task Group to create Open Access roads data set.

Although companies already provide accurate road maps, data cannot be extracted freely for other applications, limiting their use to navigation, or to commercial users with deep pockets.

By offering open-access information, gROADS allows the development sector, governments, civil society and researchers to conduct studies, plan services and develop new applications from the existing data sets.

Read the rest of the article at http://www.scidev.net/global/data/news/misguided-nations-lock-up-valuable-geospatial-data.html

CODATA (ICSU’s Committee on Data for Science and Technology) and the ICSU World Data System are collaborating to organise a joint conference, SciDataCon 2014 in New Delhi on 2-5 November 2014.  

Highlighting the theme of ‘Data Sharing and Integration for Global Sustainability’, this will be a major international conference addressing various issues relating to data and international research.

CODATA and WDS invite applications for expert members of the International Scientific Programme Committee.  Further details are below and in a pdf attachement SciDataCon2014_ISPC_Nomination_Letter.  Please submit applications no later than 14 February 2014 using the online form.

SciDataCon 2014: Invitation for International Scientific Programme Committee Candidates

Below is the text of the Call for Candidates issues jointly by CODATA and ICSU-WDS.

Dear Colleagues,

Data are essential to all scientific endeavours. The emerging cultures of data sharing and publication, open access to, and reuse of data are positive signs of an evolving research environment. Nevertheless, several cultural and technological challenges are still preventing the scientific and research community from realizing the full benefits of these trends.

The Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) and the World Data System (WDS), interdisciplinary bodies of the International Council for Science (ICSU) are supporting and encouraging these positive changes by actively promoting effective data policies and good data management practices in the scientific and research community, to produce better science, which ultimately benefits society. Likewise, the challenges and opportunities of ‘Big Data’ may have ramifications for the conduct of science: the value and importance of data are being recognized more than ever before.

As a major contribution to this effort, the two organizations are co-sponsoring and organizing a high profile international biennial conference on scientific research data. SciDataCon 2014 will provide a unique platform bringing together international experts and practitioners in data sciences, technologies and management; researchers from the natural, social, health and computer sciences, and from the humanities; research funders; policy makers and advisors.

The sustainability challenges facing society today cannot be solved without multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary research on global sustainability that requires the use, sharing and integration of data across scientific disciplines and domains and from international sources. The effectiveness and credibility of this research will rely on the availability to the scientific and research community of quality-assessed and interoperable datasets.

To facilitate the work of international research undertakings—including the Future Earth international research programme on global sustainability launched by ICSU and its partners in 2014—and amplify the message of like-minded global data initiatives promoting data sharing and interoperability—including the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and the recently established Research Data Alliance (RDA)—SciDataCon 2014 will highlight the theme of Data Sharing and Integration for Global Sustainability.

The conference will take place on 2–5 November 2014 in New Delhi, India and will be hosted by the Indian National Science Academy. With high-level keynotes, a mix of plenary and parallel sessions, and a stimulating poster session, SciDataCon is conceived as a focussed—yet inclusive—conference to address the issues most important to the global scientific and research community as they pertain to data and information. The International Scientific Programme Committee will play a key role in implementing the scientific programme with innovative online consultation and input from research and data science communities worldwide.

We invite applications for expert members of the International Scientific Programme Committee.  Please submit applications no later than 14 February 2014 using the online form available here.

Huadong GUO, President, CODATA, and Bernard Minster, Chair, ICSU World Data System

Enquiries:  secretariat@scidatacon2014.org

Conference Website: www.SciDataCon2014.org

Last week at the 10th Plenary of GEO (the intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations), CODATA played a lead role in organizing a side event of the GEO Data Sharing Working Group (DSWG).  Entitled, Implementation of Data Sharing Principles, the side event had two principal aims: first, to showcase the progress, current activities and priorities of the DSWG; and second, to provide examples of how national, regional and international capacities for data sharing are being developed and extended.

It was notable during the week – and not just in the DSWG meeting and side event – that the GEO community views the advancement of data sharing as one of its tangible success areas.  GEO’s mission is to build an interoperable Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) that will yield a broad range of societal benefits.  The availability of data shared by governments and participating organizations and programmes is fundamental to achieving this mission.  As the GEOSS Implementation Plan declares, ‘The societal benefits of Earth observations cannot be achieved without data sharing’.

Barbara Ryan (GEO Secretariat Director), Jose Miguel Rubio Iglesias (EC), Catherine Doldirina (EC Joint Research Centre) at the DSWG Side Event

Nevertheless, as Barbara Ryan, GEO’s new Secretariat Director, remarked in opening the DSWG Side Event, much remains to be done.  The GEO Community and the DSWG should keep advocating for Open Data principles and practice.  It is also important for GEO to demonstrate the benefits of Open Data.  These can be economic: as Barbara observed in her recent TED-X talk, just the data underpinning a recent Spanish mapping and analysis of forestation would have cost more than 320M dollars if the US were still charging for LandSat data.  It is this type of benefit, she declared, that makes her passionate about data sharing issues.

Greg Withee, the U.S. co-chair of the DSWG, called for improved monitoring and evaluation of the use of GEO datasets, so that the benefits can be more easily demonstrated, and that the effect of restrictions can be analysed and understood.

The Open Data agenda has come a long way and its advocates have made considerable ground, witness the G8 Open Data Charter.  GEO and the DSWG need to move in step with such advances.  Indeed, as was argued by a number of speakers, GEO as a voluntary intergovernmental organisation is well positioned to advance Open Data approaches even further, for example, by building consensus and developing practical Open Data implementations.

Catherine Doldirina, of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, explored the challenge presented by the lack of ‘legal interoperability’.  Legal interoperability is inhibited when a restrictive license on a data input ‘infects’ an aggregated or derivative data product.  To avoid this problem, Catherine urged GEO Members and Participating Organisations to make datasets available with as few restrictions as possible.  Similarly, GEO needs to further promote the use of fully open and interoperable licenses.  She argued that GEO should adopt Open Data principles for the GEO Data-CORE and elevate this to the default standard of sharing data within GEOSS.  An ad hoc subgroup of the DSWG is exploring possible revisions to the GEO Data Sharing Principles for consideration by the GEO community, potentially including a more explicit endorsement of Open Data principles.

A highlight of the side event was a panel of 8 speakers on the issue of capacity building, organized and moderated by Robert Chen, one of the DSWG co-chairs and former CODATA Secretary-General. Some of the panel presentations focused on examples of new and emerging data policies to foster data sharing: e.g., that of the European Commission in the Horizon 2020 research programme; that of the EC’s Copernicus research programme; the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Data Policy for Earth Observations; proposed changes to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) Data Policy to encourage greater availability of data; and the Open Data initiative of the World Bank launched in 2010, which has led to a 10-fold increase in the use of World Bank data. DSWG co-chair Michel Schouppe of the EC reported that the Open Data requirements of Horizon 2020 are still being piloted but are now obligatory for some parts of the programme. Greg Scott of the United Nations Initiative on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) described a number of data sharing efforts in the geospatial community, including discussions with the International Bar Association about a proposed Convention on Geoinformation.

Chinese delegates at the ChinaGEO stand, with Liu Chuang (Chinese Academy of Sciences) in the centre of the front row. http://www.iisd.ca/geo/geox/17jan.html

Other panel presentations examined how data sharing principles are being put into practice at national and regional levels.  Liu Chuang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (and past CODATA Prize winner) listed the recent contributions of China in this regard.  She also highlighted the work of the CODATA PASTD Task Group, which inter alia will be holding a major workshop in Nairobi, Kenya this summer to examine the implications and implementation of data sharing principles for developing countries.

Derek Hanekom, South African Minister of Science and Technology, with GEO participants from Africa at the AfriGEOSS Stand http://www.iisd.ca/geo/geox/

Ganiy Agbaje, DSWG member from Nigeria, described the plans of AfriGEOSS to build data sharing capacity in Africa.  AfriGEOSS will provide coordination and a means for African countries to participate to a greater extent in GEO and develop data sharing capacity.

The closing panel discussion focused on the challenge of incentivising Open Data.  The mandates of funded programmes are one thing, but even these only go so far.  More incentive needs to come from the downstream benefits – whether the direct economic benefit of third party services build on Open Data or the benefits to be achieved through addressing (for example) GEO’s Societal Benefit Areas on the basis of improved access to data, information and services.  As DSWG co-chair Paul Uhlir observes, quoted in a recent piece in SciDevNet, ‘Open data policies are much more economically generative than closed ones.’

Presenters Chu Ishida (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and Catherine Doldirina (EC Joint Research Centre)

Recognising the important ongoing contributions of the GEO Data Sharing Working Group, CODATA was delighted not only to contribute to organizing the side event, but also to sponsor a reception (as it has in many previous GEO side events), enabling discussion and networking to continue over refreshments, wine and hors d’oeuvres.

Presenters Daniel Quintart (EC), Liu Chuang (Chinese Academy of Sciences) and DSWG Member Ambinintsoa Noasilalaonomenj Anahary (Madagascar)

This blog post was written by Robert Chen and Simon Hodson.  Photo credits to Robert Chen where there is no link to the IISD Highlights Report.

I was in the Hague yesterday (Monday 20 January) for a meeting with DANS and the 3TU Data.Centrum.  It was a generously accorded opportunity for me to communicate plans for the future of CODATA and discuss membership.  I have worked a lot with Dutch colleagues over the past few years in the context of Knowledge Exchange and I think some inspiring work is going on in the Netherlands.  In particular, I am impressed by the partnership of these two organisations in Research Data Netherlands and also in the way DANS and 3TU have aimed to respond to the Riding the Wave report to develop a partnership and a federated data infrastructure based upon the distribution of back office and front office functions.

The occasion for this visit was an excellent symposium by DANS visiting fellows, Andrew Treloar @atreloar and Herbert van der Sompel @hvdsomp, on Riding the Wave and The Scholarly Archive of the Future.  The joint presentation, and the structured discussions, were the result of ten days of dedicated thinking and working together.

@atreloar presents dimensions of change in scholarly practice and communications.

Andrew and Herbert took as a starting point four functions of research communication suggested by Rosendaal and Geurts in 1997: registration, certification, awareness and archiving.  They analysed changes in each of these functions and came up with a typology characterising dimensions of change in scholarly practice and communications.  The key features of these changes are an increasing variety in the object of communication and a disaggregation of the processes that comprise communication – particularly of those, perhaps, that perform the registration, ‘certification’ and awareness functions in the Rosendaal/Geurts typology.

@hvdsomp presents the emerging ‘recording’ and ‘archiving’ infrastructure

The implications of this for ‘recording’ and ‘archiving’ infrastructure were represented in a diagram.  The challenge for data archives is to interface and interoperate effectively with new, emerging, disaggregated systems for scholarly communication, filtering, and annotation – while retaining (and sustaining) the necessary archiving functions.

Andrew and Herbert were clear that this work was ‘thinking in progress’.  Indeed, I think that was what made the event so interesting.  It was genuinely refreshing to engage with some relatively unhindered and untethered thinking.  Moreover, it was imaginative and bold for the event to be organised in such a way, in the conviction that colleagues from DANS, 3TU Data.Centrum and others involved in data archiving need to imagine the archive of the future and would benefit in this from the insights of invited experts who had been given time to think…

This post is by Bob Chen, Director of CIESIN (Center for International Earth Science Information Network), Columbia University, former Secretary General of CODATA and current co-chair of the GEO Data Sharing Working Group.

Representatives of more than 80 governments and 100 participating organizations are gathering in Geneva this week to renew their commitment to GEO, the Group on Earth Observations, a voluntary intergovernmental initiative launched in 2005, and to agree on plans for the next decade. A key aspect of GEO has been to widen the consensus on the need for open sharing of Earth Observation and related spatial data and to implement data sharing mechanisms within GEOSS, the Global Earth Observing System of Systems.

CODATA has played a leadership role in GEO’s data sharing efforts since 2006. The GEOSS 10-year implementation plan adopted in 2005 had outlined a set of Data Sharing Principles (DSPs) for data sharing across the GEO community, but translating these principles into practice required agreement on terminology, consensus on processes and procedures, and inputs from experts on legal and intellectual property issues. As an interdisciplinary committee of the International Council for Science (ICSU), which was and still is a GEO Participating Organization, CODATA volunteered to lead the initial data sharing task and organized an expert meeting at its 2006 CODATA Conference in Beijing. In 2007, CODATA led development of a white paper that reviewed past experience with data sharing principles and policies and drafted specific guidelines for implementing the DSPs. Based in part on these efforts, the 2007 Ministerial Summit in Cape Town affirmed the need to reach a consensus on the implementation of the DSPs by the next Ministerial in 2010.

The 2008 GEO-V Plenary in Bucharest elevated the original GEO data sharing task to a higher-level Task Force with a mix of governmental and Participating Organization members. CODATA continued to represent ICSU as one of the co-chairs of the Data Sharing Task Force, and played a key role in revising the proposed implementation guidelines. In September 2009, a version of the white paper, Toward Implementation of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems Data Sharing Principles, authored by Paul Uhlir, myself, Joanne Gabrynowicz, and Katleen Janssen, was simultaneously published in the CODATA Data Science Journal and the Journal of Space Law. The paper provided detailed justification for the GEOSS Implementation Guidelines that were subsequently accepted at the GEO-VI Plenary in Washington DC in November 2009.

Recognizing that implementation guidelines were only a partial step towards implementation of the GEOSS DSPs, GEO recognized that more specific actions needed to be taken by GEO collectively, by individual Members and Participating Organizations, and by specific GEOSS tasks and cross-cutting activities to move towards full and open access to key data within GEOSS. The Task Force therefore developed a detailed Action Plan that was adopted at the GEO-VII Plenary in Beijing in 2010. A key element of the Action Plan was for GEO to create the GEOSS Data-CORE—the GEOSS Data Collection of Open Resources for Everyone—consisting of a distributed pool of documented datasets, contributed by the GEO community on the basis of full and open unrestricted access and at no more than the cost of reproduction and distribution. The Action Plan also identified a range of other implementation actions and established a Data Sharing Working Group (DSWG) to continue the work of the Task Force.

CODATA continues to play a lead role in the DSWG, serving as one of six co-chairs, contributing substantial expertise on issues such as legal interoperability and data sharing frameworks, and helping to organize side events and other supporting activities. With the end of the first 10-year implementation period in sight, and in light of rapidly growing recognition by governments and the wider community of the benefits of open data sharing, there is increasing awareness within the GEO community to the potential not only to further implement the existing GEOSS DSPs but also to expand the range of open data sharing efforts across a range of societal benefit areas.

The DSWG has organized a side event at the GEO-X Plenary that is highlighting a number of new data sharing initiatives and improvements in capacity for data sharing at national, regional, and global levels. Simon Hodson and I are also members of the ICSU delegation at the GEO-X Plenary. I will be working with Simon to report on the side event in more detail and on outcomes of the GEO-X Plenary and Ministerial Summit related to data sharing in upcoming blog entries.

Under the name SciDataCon 2014, the next CODATA International Conference will take place in New Delhi, India on 2-5 November 2014.

Research data is at the core of the scientific endeavour, but several cultural and technological challenges are still preventing the research community from realising the full benefits. The emerging cultures of data sharing and publication, open access to, and reuse of data are the positive signs of an evolving research environment.

Under the umbrella of the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) and the World Data System (WDS) are supporting and encouraging these positive changes by actively promoting effective data policies and good data management practices in the research community, to produce better science, which ultimately benefits society.

As a major contribution to this effort, the two organizations have decided to co-sponsor and organize a high profile international biennial conference on scientific research data. SciDataCon will provide a unique platform bringing together international experts and practitioners in data management and technologies, researchers from the natural sciences and social sciences, research funders, and policy makers.

The sustainability challenges facing society today cannot be solved without multidisciplinary and transdiscplinary research on global sustainability, which requires the use of data across scientific disciplines and domains and from international sources. The effectiveness and credibility of this research will rely on the availability to the research community of quality-assessed and interoperable datasets.

In order to facilitate the work of international research undertakings—including the Future Earth research programme on global sustainability launched by ICSU and its partners in 2014— and amplify the message of like-minded global data initiatives promoting data sharing and interoperability—including the Group on Earth Observations and the Research Data Alliance—SciDataCon 2014 will highlight the theme of Data haring and Integration for Global Sustainability.

With high-level keynotes, four parallel sessions and a stimulating poster session, SciDataCon is conceived as a focussed—yet inclusive—conference to address major issues in global data management. The scientific programme will be designed by an International Scientific Programme Committee with innovative online consultation and input from research and data communities worldwide.

We are pleased to invite you to contribute to this exciting conference planned on 2–5 November 2014 in New Delhi, India and hosted by the Indian National Science Academy.  More information, calls for papers and invitations to participate in discussions around the themes of the conference will appear soon at http://www.scidatacon2014.org