A guest post from Alex de Sherbinin, CIESIN (Center for International Earth Science Information Network), Columbia University

I had the privilege of representing the CODATA Global Roads Data Development Task Group at the recently completed Global Geospatial Conference (4-8 November) at the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) conference center in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The conference, which had about 500 participants, was organized by the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association (GSDI) and Environmental Information Systems for Africa (EIS-Africa).

A lot of talent from Africa was on display in the plenary and breakout sessions, with papers addressing land cover change, conflict prevention systems involving a combination of SMS text and geospatial technologies, geospatial education, and spatial data infrastructure development, among many other topics. Rwanda is one country that has made major investments in ICT and spatial data. Apparently each school in the country has at least one computer connected to the internet, and it is also the site of a geospatial reasoning education pilot test program with collaborators from Rochester Institute of Technology and the National University of Rwanda.

My primary purpose in attending was to make African colleagues aware of the availability of the Global Roads Open Access Data Set (gROADS) version 1 data release, which includes improved roads data for many countries in Africa, and to present work completed under the auspices of the Task Group on roads data development methodologies. These include the compilation of best available public domain data, digitization and semi-automated extraction of roads from remote sensing imagery, field based mapping using PDAs/smart phones and global positioning systems (GPSes), and crowd sourcing on the Internet.

At the end of the presentation I made a pitch for open data, meaning data that is free of restrictions on dissemination and use. The paper was well received and further conversations with UNECA and others at the conference revealed additional roads data sources for a gROADS version 2. I was particularly gratified to learn that the Democratic Republic of Congo has put their entire roads data set online free of restrictions. In terms of follow up, colleagues at UNECA’s Geoinformation Section expressed interest in collaborating with the CODATA Task Group, and the task group will be following up on that and other leads for possible funding.

Geospatial data and technologies are evolving rapidly, and a number of major software companies held sessions describing new products. I attended all or part of sessions featuring Esri’s ArcGIS online, Google Map Engine, and Intergraph’s range of spatial products. After a plenary talk by a Google Maps representative, a national mapping agency (NMA) representative asked pointedly if there would still be a role for NMAs in the future. Later in the conference, Dave Coleman, the GSDI President, stated that much like people begin to think that eggs come from the supermarket, many also think that maps come from Google. But the reality is of course that those data still need to be produced somewhere, ensuring an important role for NMAs and other data developers.

Several talks and plenary presentations addressed the “mobile revolution”, in which map information is available on hand held devices and smart phones for use anywhere. Africa has bypassed the old style infrastructure of land lines, and now a surprising proportion of the population has cell phones and smart phones. A wide range of spatial data collection is now taking place on smart phones equipped with data entry software (such as that available from FormHub). Two countries in Africa – South Africa and Nigeria – also have remote sensing satellites. So these are exciting days indeed for data development in Africa.

Beyond the conference venue, I found myself reflecting on the dizzying pace of change in Addis and other major cities in Africa. The Chinese are building a new light rail system and residential and office blocks are rising everywhere. Conference presenters mentioned that African economies have among the most rapid rates of growth anywhere in the world and overseas investors are flocking there. Land grabbing for commercial agriculture is taking place in many countries, a relatively new phenomenon and one that promises to accelerate migration to the continent’s cities. I commented to more than one person that as a New Yorker, I feel like I am living in a sleepy backwater by comparison!

In closing, I would like to thank CODATA for the opportunity to travel to the conference, my Task Group colleagues Sives Govandar (EIS-Africa) and Harlan Onsrud (GSDI) for organizing an excellent conference, and our Ethiopian colleagues for their hospitality. A crowning moment was watching Harlan Onsrud break the ice at the closing banquet by perfectly mirroring the dance moves of a gyrating Ethiopian dancer. Before long everyone was on the dance floor enjoying themselves!

I have now been Executive Director of CODATA for very nearly three months.  The first CODATA Newsletter to be produced during my time in this role is now available.  The Newsletter pays tribute to my predecessor, Kathleen Cass; it announces Out of Cite, Out of Mind: The Current State of Practice, Policy, and Technology for the Citation of Data, a report from the CODATA-ICSTI Task Group on Data Citation Standards and Practices; and it reports on recent activities of the Executive Committee and the CODATA Task Groups.

The first three months have been very busy, and I intend to provide some more reflections on this time.  September and October are normally a time of year filled with conferences and workshops – this year has been no different and has given me a chance to talk about and discuss CODATA, its mission and activities, at a number of different events.

I gave a presentation with the title ‘Research data management and UK funding policies’ at the International Union of Crystallography’s (IUCr) COMCIFs Crystallographic Information and Data Management Symposium on Sunday 25 August – though I was also able to talk a bit about CODATA. The slides and recording are available.

On 9-10 Sept I attended the euroCRIS Strategic Seminar on Metadata in Research Information Systems. euroCRIS is, of course, a strategic partner of CODATA.  I had been asked to speak about new requirements for dataset metadata. I focused on new developments in data publication and also highlighted standards (e.g. DDI in social science, CIF in crystallography, ISAtab in life sciences) that, although not new, are significant in this context for paying a great deal of attention to capturing research method and provenance, rather than just describing the data output.  The slides from the meeting are available online.

Later that week, on 12 Sept, I participated in a panel session on data publishing at the ALPSP (Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers) International Conference. The panel was organised by Fiona Murphy of Wiley and was entitled Data Publishing: not the why, but the how (and then what?). The panel included Kerstin Lehnert (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, director of IEDA, Integrated Earth Data Applications) and Anthony Brookes (Data to Knowledge, University of Leicester). The presentation and audio are available. The session seemed to garner a lot of interest and there have been nice write-ups in Research Information and on the ALPSP blog.

After attending the Research Data Alliance Plenary meeting in DC on 18-19 September, I gave a remote presentation and participated in a discussion about International CODATA’s activities and plans with the 9th Meeting of the Board on Research Data and Information.  I had a similar opportunity to speak about the new CODATA Strategic Plan at the annual meeting of the Group of European Members of ICSU.

I have also been contributing to events organised by a couple of European projects. On 25-6 September, I presented at a workshop organised by the EUDAT Project on Data Availability and Access Policies. The report on the workshop is being prepared and will be made available soon. This led to participation in a follow-up workshop session at the EUDAT Conference on 28-30 October in Rome. Through working groups EUDAT will be looking at data policies, data management planning and licensing issues for their consortium – and this is an area in which CODATA and the CODATA Data Policy Committee may contribute.

In these presentations, I have been pursuing some thoughts about the evolution and development of data policies and above all the importance of encouraging journal editorial boards, learned societies and International Scientific Unions – as bodies that can be said to represent the views of researchers in a given discipline – to develop data policies and recommendations regarding data availability, licensing, standards and infrastructure. These were themes that I also addressed in a presentation – in French – given at the Journées de FRÉDOC.

Finally, for now, I participated in a workshop organised by the SIM4RDM project.The workshop aimed to ensure that the funding and evaluation frameworks developed by the project meet the needs of the various Research Data Management (RDM) stakeholders – speakers were asked to make suggestions for how the Frameworks might be tested and validated in collaborative activities. CODATA National Committees, comprised of appropriate stakeholders might find the project outputs of interest for considering national RDM development and interventions.

I has been a busy couple of months!  I hope some of these links are of interest.

This blog is for and about the activities of the international CODATA community.

CODATA is:

• An international community and network of expertise on research data issues.
• An influential and authoritative voice in national and international policy regarding scientific data management.
• A focal point for international, cross-disciplinary collaboration and communication on key scientific data issues.

So on this blog you will be able to find out about CODATA’s Data Policy Committee and our activities to help define an international policy agenda for scientific data; about initiatives to push the frontiers of data science (through an international workshop series, our Task Groups, Special Activities, biannual conference and our Data Science Journal); and, about our advocacy and support for data issues in international scientific programmes like Future Earth.

A notable feature of this blog will be guest posts from the CODATA community, from expert data scientists working on a range of fascinating projects.  Otherwise, posts will be written by Simon Hodson, Executive Director of CODATA.

We look forward to seeing you soon!