The GOSC (Global Open Science Cloud initiative) and other activities in the ISC CODATA Decadal Programme ‘Making Data Work for Cross-Domain Grand Challenges’, are addressing topics around large-scale data interoperability across domain and institutional boundaries. This presentation covers some important activities under the Decadal Programme in this regard, with the idea that they might also prove useful for consideration within a GOSC frame. Development efforts toward a Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework are central to many of these activities.
The Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework (CDIF) is an emerging idea for a set of guidelines around domain-agnostic standards for supporting the implementation of interoperability and reusability of FAIR data, especially across domain- and institutional boundaries. The FAIR Digital Object Framework (FDOF) proposes a protocol to enable applications to find data and metadata objects of interest, and to locate their metadata schemas such that the data can be acted upon. As such, the FDOF could provide an important basis for machine actionability, but it does not by itself guarantee interoperability. The Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework would provide a list of standards in a range of functional roles to support the next level of interoperability, but giving domains the “lingua franca” against which to map domain-specific standards and ontologies. Such standards as Schema.org, DCAT, SKOS, PROV-O, DDI-CDI, and I-ADOPT are being suggested. The functional roles include the description of units and measurements, the relation of variables to concepts and consistent descriptions of data structure. The work around the Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework is based on practical use-cases, and has been slowly growing out of various activities conducted under CODATA’s Decadal Programme. It is still in early stages, but reflects an emerging consensus among many of the participants in this endeavour.
This event was intended for GOSC Data Interoperability Working Group, the GOSC initiative more broadly, and any other interested parties. The main presenter, Arofan Gregory, in-house consultant with CODATA, outlined the current thinking about the Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework, and described how it will be further explored in the WorldFAIR project and through other case studies. Time was given to extensive discussion in order to gather feedback and identify areas for collaboration and further work.
The event was run twice to maximise the possibility of attendance at times that may be convenient for different timezones.
Presentation: Toward a Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework
Recording, GOSC DataIO Webinar on the emerging Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework 1, 13:00 UTC, Thu 31 March:
Chat from first webinar: https://codata.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Toward-CDIF-Session-One-Chat.docx
Recording, GOSC DataIO Webinar on the emerging Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework 2, 21:00 UTC, Thu 31 March:
Chat from second webinar: https://codata.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Toward-CDIF-Session-Two-Chat.docx