This is the fourth in the series of short statements from candidates in the forthcoming CODATA Elections. Paul Laughton is a new candidate seeking election to the CODATA Executive Committee, although he has been strongly involved with the CODATA Early Career Data Professionals Working Group. He is nominated by the South African CODATA National Committee.

“We are living in interesting times regarding the exploration of the potential of data intensive lives. There is so much to be done to enhance data in a meaningful way to improve everyday lives.”

Currently I am a senior lecturer at the Department of the University of Johannesburg at the Department of Information and Knowledge Management. My research interests include data duration and data policy. Through my work I have been exposed to some of the challenges and issues we are facing regarding the management of research data. I am the newly elected chair of the South African CODATA Committee, and I am passionate and insistent on taking up the challenge set out by those who served before me. I have been very actively involved with the CODATA “Young Scientists” or as we are referred to now as the “Early Career Data Professionals (ECDP)”, since Kiev CODATA conference in 2006 I have been working to improve the involvement of early career data professionals in CODATA.

I have had the privilege to work some great people in the CODATA community and I have learned a lot in a relatively short space of time (leaving room for so much more to learn). The South African National CODATA Committee have a strong strategic focus on leveraging research data to reduce the digital divide. We are focused on improving Pan African data sharing relationships as well as with other international institutions. South Africa faces some real landmark challenges with the development of infrastructure and systems to collect, process and store data from the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) telescope in the near future.

As a country on the African continent South Africa is very privileged and benefits greatly from the involvement with CODATA. As a chair of this committee we look to enhance the potential of research data, as we strive to make a difference in the scientific data community.

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) but 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. (This working group’s most recent success was the Canadian Research Data Summit, which attracted over 150 leading players and decision-makers from government, private sector, academia and non-governmental organizations.)

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 young scientists, communicated among all graduate universities in Canada and in similar networks, and awarded biennially in coordination with CODATA’s International Conference. She is 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 is also 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 successful running of SciDataCon2014 in New Delhi.

This is the second in the series of short statements from candidates in the forthcoming CODATA Elections. Claudio Soares is a new candidate, not currently serving on the Executive Committee.  He is the nominee of IUPAB, the International Union for Pure and Applied Biophysics.

Name of Candidate: Claudio M. Soares

Affiliation: International Union for Pure and Applied Biophysics

Nationality: Portuguese

In nominating Dr. Claudio M. Soares as an Ordinary Member of the CODATA Executive Committee, the IUPAB points out that he has been an active scientist in the fields of biomolecular modelling and simulation and structural bioinformatics for more than 24 years. This mostly computational work is highly relevant, requiring large amounts of data processing and data standards, putting him in a particularly privileged situation to understand and foster CODATA’s mission.

He works in the larger field of structural biology, and has a considerable knowledge and understanding of the importance of structural and sequence data on biomolecules for the advancement of Life and Health Sciences. These two areas (structural and sequence data) are the ones where he can be most useful to the operations of CODATA.

Briefly, Dr. Soares’ scientific and academic experience and contributions include:

• The management and participation in scientific societies (Portuguese Biophysical Society, Portuguese Biochemical Society, IUPAB)
• Chairperson of the Portuguese Biophysical Society between 2002 and 2008
• Experience in the management of academic institutions as Dean of ITQB, a Research and Training Institution belonging to the New University of Lisbon
• Since 1994 he has published 95 research publications (ISI) with a h-factor of 30

This is the first in the series of short statements from candidates in the forthcoming CODATA Elections.  Niv Ahituv is a current member of the CODATA Executive Committee and a candidate as Vice-President.

I would like, first, to briefly review my academic and managerial experience, since I believe it pertains to my contribution to CODATA. I serve now as the Dean of Dan School of Hi-Tech Studies at the College of Academic Studies in Israel and a Professor Emeritus of Tel Aviv University (TAU). In TAU I was the founder and the Academic Director of the Institute of Internet Studies, and the Marko and Lucie Chaoul Chair for Research in Information Evaluation. From 1999 to 2002 I served as Vice President and Director General (CEO) of TAU. From 1989 to 1994 I served as the Dean of the Faculty of Management – The Graduate School of Business Administration at TAU. In 2005 I was awarded a Life Time Achievement Award by ILLA, The Israeli Association for Information Technology. In a worldwide ranking of scientific publications in Information Systems published from 1985 to 1990, I came out in third place. My recent research focuses on Privacy and Technology.

It can be observed that my career has incorporated managerial experience as well as academic achievements.

I have served as a CODATA EC member for four years. During those two terms I chaired the Membership Committee, which developed a new strategy for member recruiting that is now under implementation. I was also a member of the Strategic Committee of the EC. I helped in organizing a workshop on information requirements for taking care of elderly people, held in Tel Aviv in 2012 and sponsored by CODATA. I also helped in organizing the 2014 annual meeting of the EC in Jerusalem, with cooperation of the Israeli National Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

My contribution to the EC and CODATA relies on my practical experience in management and business strategy (serving as a Dean of the Business School and the CEO of Tel Aviv University, and as a consultant and a member in a number of Boards of Directors of large companies), and my academic experience in IT Management research and Internet Studies. In those capacities I helped develop and implement strategies dealing with increasing the membership community of CODATA and its long term strategy.

As a faculty member in a business school and IT Management, I am a “minority” among the EC members who are more anchored to Exact Sciences and Life Sciences. Consequently, I try to represent the views of Social Sciences and Humanities in the EC.

I truly believe in the high importance of CODATA. It must pursue information sharing among various academic disciplines, as well as among researchers in various parts of the world. It must strive for open access to all scientific data and to easy accessibility of data to all the parts of the globe, particularly to less developed regions.

This should be achieved by increasing the impact of CODATA within the scientific community. That can be done by setting two main targets:

1. expanding membership to more countries but also to organisations and academic institutions pertaining to CODATA domain of activities;
2. striving to collaborate and create strategic partnerships with other organizations that share or partly share interests with CODATA.

I am at the ICSU (International Council for Science) General Assembly in Auckland, New Zealand, 31 Aug – 3 Sept 2014. ICSU has been described here as ‘the United Nations for Science’. As such it provides an international voice for the importance and role of science in human society, internationally. Its mission is ‘to strengthen international science for the benefit of society’ and as such the role of science in supporting evidence-based policy making is a big theme.  CODATA, of course, is part of the ‘ICSU family’: were are an interdisciplinary body of ICSU and we were established in 1966 as the ICSU Committee on Data for Science and Technology. CODATA supports the ICSU mission ‘by promoting improved scientific data management as use’.

This is my first time at an ICSU General Assembly and it is fascinating to see the workings of this international, non-governmental organisation that brings together scientists from all around the world.

CODATA is heavily involved in various activities at this ICSU General Assembly…

Already, yesterday, Sunday 31 August, I was on a panel to discuss with ICSU’s National and International Scientific Union members a draft report – towards which CODATA and ICSU-WDS have contributed – which will lay out ICSU’s position on the issues of Open Access, Open Scientific Data and the use metrics for the evaluation of scientific contributions. The group putting together the report was chaired by John Ball of the University of Oxford: among others Mark Thorley, CODATA EC Member; John Helliwell, IUCr Delegate to CODATA; Mustapha Mokrane, ED of ICSU-WDS and I all contributed to the report.

Today, Mon 1 Sept 2014, I shall – very rapidly – introduce the CODATA Poster as part of the ‘Poster Expresso’ event!

This evening, CODATA is co-organising, with the Royal Society, a side event on Open Science and Open Data. This will feature an introductory presentation from CODATA President Huadong Guo and then a discussion of the Open Data agenda from Geoffrey Boulton. A panel featuring representatives of ICSU members countries as well as of the Global Young Academy will respond to the issues. The meeting will be chaired by Kari Raivio, Past President of the Finnish Academy of Sciences and former Vice President of ICSU.

Kari Raivio also chaired the ICSU Review of CODATA which will be the subject of a session at the ICSU GA tomorrow, Tue 2 Sept 2014. Professor Raivio will outline the process for the review and the findings and recommendations of the report. CODATA President Professor Huadong Guo will then provide our response and show how we have already put into practice many of these recommendations.

I am currently in Nairobi, Kenya, for the CODATA Workshop on Open Data for Science and Sustainability in Developing Countries (SSDC), 6-8 August 2014.  This workshop has been organised by the longstanding CODATA Task Group on Preservation of and Access to Scientific and Technical Data in/for/with Developing Countries (or PASTD for short!)

This Task Group has organised an impressive series of research and training workshops in a host of developing countries over the last decade or so.  Some of these are listed on the Task Group’s page.

The Nairobi SSDC workshop is hosted at the United Nations Offices in Nairobi and supported by a number of organisations, including UNESCO and Kenyan Ministry of Information and Communication.  GEO, the Group on Earth Observations have provided funds for delegates from Tanzania and Madagascar to attend.  The ICSU World Data System and the Research Data Alliance are also represented.  See the Workshop Site for the full list of co-organisers and supporting organisations.

The purpose of the Nairobi SSCD Workshop is threefold:

1. to describe and showcase the accomplishments of the participating organizations and other contributors in using research data and ICTs and in developing open knowledge environments to reduce the digital research divide during the last ten years. 
2. to describe the strategies and future objectives of the sponsoring and participating organizations and discuss their common interests in this area, with special consideration for the UN’s post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and ICSU’s Future Earth research program in developing countries. 
3. Develop and endorse a Guideline for Implementation of Principles of Preservation of and Open Access to Research Data in Developing Counties.

It will be interesting to help prepare the principles and the guideline on implementation in the context of an African perspective on the needs for and equity of Open data.  I hope to learn a great deal this week and I hope that what comes out of this workshop can have a positive impact on genuinely international movement towards Open data culture and practice.  I shall draw attention to the Principles and Guidelines when they are available.

The workshop is preceded by a two-day training workshop, hosted by the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.  The workshop will cover Open data principles and policy, issues of Intellectual Property, as well as practical training sessions in data analysis, particularly relating to geospatial data.

It promises to be an exciting week – more soon I hope!

Professor GUO Huadong, President of CODATA gives the opening keynote

There is little doubt that Big Data is a hot topic. Yet while the significance for Big Data may be demonstrable in certain research areas, there is also a lot of hype (particularly in relation to commercial applications), and its corollary, therefore, scepticism. Convened by CODATA and co-sponsored by a number of important international organisations, the International Workshop on Big Data for International Scientific Programmes took place on 8-9 June in Beijing, and aimed to shed more considered light on the potential role of Big Data in such international and interdisciplinary research activities.

As an interdisciplinary body of ICSU, the International Council for Science, CODATA has a strategic commitment to raise the profile of data issues in ICSU-sponsored programmes like Future Earth and Integrated Research on Disaster Risk. CODATA believes it can play an important role in improving understanding of challenges and opportunities relating to Big Data international scientific programmes where the integration and analysis of sometimes very large, but often complex and diverse datasets will be essential for achieving research goals which aim to improve decision-making on critical issues for humankind and the environment.

Statement of Recommendations and Actions

As a first, practical step towards focusing attention on the potential of Big Data for international scientific programmes, the workshop participants and sponsoring organisations, agreed a Statement of Recommendations and Actions which is published today. The Statement recognises that Big Data ‘present particularly significant challenges and notable opportunities for transdisciplinary, international research programmes’ as well as for scientific data services and infrastructure providers. It makes a series of recommendations for the sponsors of international research programmes in order to help such programmes take better advantage of the Big Data age:

1. Respond to the importance of Big Data for international scientific programmes
2. Exploit the benefits of Big Data for society
3. Improve understanding of Big Data through international collaboration
4. Promote universal access to Big Data through global research infrastructures
5. Explore and address the challenges of Big Data stewardship
6. Encourage capacity building and skills development in Big Data science
7. Foster development of policies to maximise exploitation of Big Data

The recommendations are followed by more specific actions for a CODATA-convened Working Group on Big Data for International Scientific Programmes. These actions specify useful contributions that such a Working Group can make in improving understanding of the implications of Big Data for interdisciplinary and societally-relevant research, as well as the policy and stewardship challenges involved with Big Data.

1. Produce case studies in Big Data for international scientific programmes
2. Promote sharing of Big Data solutions across scientific disciplines
3. Research policy, ethical and legal issues for Big Data
4. Research stewardship and sustainability challenges for Big Data

CODATA President, Professor GUO Huadong and former CODATA Secretary General, Dr. Robert Chen chairing the closing panel discussion

The Working Group will be convened in order to hold a first meeting, to define in more detail its workplan, at SciDataCon 2014, the International Conference on Data Sharing and Integration for Global Sustainability, in New Delhi in November. Please contact Simon Hodson, CODATA Executive Director, if you’d like to be involved.

Preparing such a Statement, if it is to be meaningful, is not a task that any one organisation can do in isolation: invited as co-sponsors for the workshop were a number of international organisations with an interest in data stewardship (our sister organisations the ICSU World Data System), data interoperability (the Research Data Alliance), data sharing and reuse (the Group on Earth Observation) as well as international collaborations involved in interdisciplinary research (Future Earth, IRDR and the International Society for Digital Earth), as well as our hosts the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (RADI). It is hoped that these organisations will also collaborate on the Working Group.

CODATA Secretary General, Professor Sara Graves, chairing the Opening Ceremony

Running over two days, the workshop featured four keynotes and twenty-one presentations from distinguished researchers. The opening ceremony was attended by over 100 participants and included agenda setting statements from representatives of sponsoring organisations. The workshop closed with a panel session, chaired by CODATA President Huadong Guo and former CODATA Secretary General, Bob Chen. The discussions were lively and engaged, focussing on finalising the Statement of Recommendations and Actions. The CODATA Workshop on Big Data Programme Book. Further discussion of the substantive issues tackled at the workshop and of the proposed Working Group activities will appear in due course.

The CODATA Prize is a major biennial award made by the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) which is an interdisciplinary body of ICSU, the International Council for Science.

Purpose and Criteria

This award:

• acknowledges outstanding achievement in the world of scientific and technical data;
• is given in recognition either of a one time achievement or of an achievement over time;
• is given, in preference, to an individual;
• recognises work carried out in fields of importance to scientific and technical data, such as data management, evaluation, dissemination, access issues, international cooperation, knowledge discovery, archiving or related subjects.

Nominations should be sure to address these criteria.

Prize Award

The 2014 CODATA Prize will be presented at SciDataCon 2014, 2-5 November 2014, New Delhi, India.  The recipient of the Prize will be presented with a commemorative piece of art and will also receive financial support to travel to New Delhi to deliver a Prize lecture at SciDataCon 2014.

Procedure for Nominations

Nominations may be made by CODATA National and Union Members, Supporting Organisations and Task Groups and should use the attached form: CODATA Prize Nominations 2014 Form-v02.

Nominations should be submitted to Simon Hodson, CODATA Executive Director:

The deadline for nominations is 21 July 2014.

Past Winners

Past winners of the CODATA Prize are listed at http://www.codata.info/archives/prize.html

CODATA Prize 2014 Committee

The CODATA Prize 2014 will be judged by a Committee composed of:

• Huadong Guo, CODATA President
• Takashi Gojobori, CODATA Vice-President
• Sara Graves, CODATA Secretary General
• John Broome, CODATA Treasurer

The programme for the ICSU CODATA Workshop on Big Data for International Scientific Programmes which is taking place in Beijing on 8-9 June has now been finalised and is available here: CODATA Big Data Workshop Programme-FINAL.

The workshop is convened with a number of international partners, including the ICSU World Data System, Future Earth, Integrated Research on Disaster Risk, the Research Data Alliance, the Group on Earth Observations, the International Society for Digital Earth, and the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth (RADI) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).  The workshop aims to provide a better understanding of the opportunities and challenges of ‘Big Data’ for international collaborative science programmes, and to promote international and cross-disciplinary collaboration, in the age of Big Data.

It is intended that proceedings and a report of the workshop will be published in the CODATA Data Science Journal, while a ‘statement’ or position piece will be submitted to a high impact publication. Above all, the workshop brings together Big Data experts and researchers involved in international research programmes and identify opportunities for future collaboration to facilitate specific research objectives: the objective is that such discussions should help set the agenda for CODATA to help convene collaborative activities in support of ‘Big Data for International Science’.  Likewise, these themes will feed into SciDataCon 2014, the International Conference on Data Sharing and Integration for Global Sustainability, in New Delhi in November 2014.

Please note that the workshop is by invitation only and the programme is published for information.

CODATA has decided to extend the deadline for proposals for new Task Group and to renew existing Task Groups.  The new and absolute deadline for Task Group Proposals is 30 May.

Details of how proposals will be evaluated, the responsibilities of Task Groups and how CODATA supports Task Groups are provided here and in the covering documentation to the proposal form.

Submissions should be made on the appropriate form for New Task Groups Proposals (CODATA TG New 2014-Form-v04-Final) or for Task Groups Renewal Proposals (CODATA TG Renewal 2014-Form-v01-Final).

Proposals should be submitted to Simon Hodson, CODATA Executive Director at the e-mail address below:

Proposals are peer reviewed and also assessed by the Executive Committee. On this basis the Executive Committee will make recommendations to the 29th CODATA General Assembly, to be held in New Delhi, 6-7 November 2014, just after SciDataCon 2014.