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“Plans are worthless, but planning is essential” Creating the culture and technology for an international data infrastructure

Mark A. ParsonsSecretary General

CASRAI Canada ReConnnect14Ottawa, Canada20 November 2014

All of society’s grand challenges require diverse

(often large) data to be shared and integrated

across cultures, scales, and technologies.

Research Data Alliance

Vision Researchers and innovators openly share data across technologies, disciplines, and countries to address the grand challenges of society.

Mission RDA builds the social and technical bridges that enable open sharing of data.

Dynamics of Infrastructure Edwards, et al. 2007 Understanding Infrastructure: Dynamics, Tensions, and Design.

• Infrastructures become “ubiquitous, accessible, reliable, and transparent” as they mature.

• Systems Networks Inter-networks

• “system-building, characterized by the deliberate and successful design of technology-based services.”

• “technology transfer across domains and locations results in variations on the original design, as well as the emergence of competing systems.”

• Finally, “a process of consolidation characterized by gateways that allow dissimilar systems to be linked into networks.”

Not what, but When is infrastructure?

Not what, but When and Who is infrastructure?

Bridges and Gateways

Gateways are often wrongly understood as “technologies,” i.e. hardware or software alone. A more accurate approach conceives them as combining a technical solution with a social choice, i.e. a standard, both of which must be integrated into existing users’ communities of practice. Because of this, gateways rarely perform perfectly. — Edwards et al. 2007

Infrastructure is

Relationships, interactions, and connections between people, technologies, and institutions

From Interregional Highways: Message from the President of the United States Transmitting a Report of the National Interregional Highway Committee, Outlining and Recommending a National System of Interregional Highways, 12 Jan. 1944.CC-BY Eric Fischer http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/8270270785/

http://www.shockblast.net/aerial-photographs/urban-sprawl-by-christoph-gielen-arizona/

Interchangecc-by-sa Steven Vance http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesbondsv/8475376363/

Ranch ExitCC-BY-SA Ken Lund http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenlund/2381991900/

Themes from A. Tsing on Collaboration Friction—An ethnography of global connection

•“Actual existing universalisms are hybrid, transient, and involved in constant reformulation through dialogue.” They work out through friction.

•“There is no reason to think collaborators have common goals.”

•Unity and diversity cover each other up. Need to remember the local.

"Data Deluge," Brett Ryder, The Economist, Feb. 2010

Data Blizzard?© Mindy Veissid | Mindy Veissid Photography.

Diverse snow crystal photos by Kenneth G. Libbrecht snowcrystals.com

The long tail of science Heidorn 2008

Distribution of NSF Awards by Dollar Value

© 2009 The Board of Trustees, University of Illinois

Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety Only variety absorbs variety

Map of the internet by the Opte Project [CC-BY] via Wikimedia Commons

Networks or ecosystems often rely on “weak” links, so partner and build relationships. (See Barabási A-L and R Albert. 1999 and others)

But what does this all have to do with RDA?

1. RDA focusses on developing “gateways”

2. RDA doesn’t do “architecture,” but it does provide a level of unity.

Deliverables that make data work

“Create - Adopt - Use”

• Adopted code, policy, specifications, standards, or practices that enable data sharing

• “Harvestable” efforts for which 12-18 months of work can eliminate a roadblock

• Efforts that have substantive applicability to groups within the data community but may not apply to all

• Efforts that can start today

RDA Principles OpennessConsensus

BalanceHarmonization

Community Driven Non-profit

RDA Organisational Framework

RDA Working Groups

1. Brokering Governance*

2. Data Citation WG

3. Data Description Registry Interoperability

4. Data Foundation and Terminology WG

5. Data Type Registries WG

6. Metadata Standards Directory Working Group

7. PID Information Types WG

8. Practical Policy WG

9. RDA/CODATA Summer Schools in Data Science and Cloud Computing in the Developing World*

10.RDA/WDS Publishing Data Bibliometrics WG

11.RDA/WDS Publishing Data Services WG

12.RDA/WDS Publishing Data Workflows WG

13.Repository Audit and Certification DSA–WDS Partnership WG

14.Standardisation of Data Categories and Codes WG

15.The BioSharing Registry: connecting data policies, standards & databases in life sciences*

16.Urban Quality of Life Indicators*

17.Wheat Data Interoperability WG

* in review

• A basic vocabulary of foundational terminology and query tool to make sure we know what we’re talking about.

• A data type model and registry (“MIME-types” for data) to help tools interpret, display, and process data.

• A persistent identifier type registry to help search engines understand what they are pointing to and retrieving.

• Coming soon:

• A basic set of machine actionable rules to enhance trust

• A metadata standards directory so we can describe similar things consistently

• A dynamic-data citation methodology so we can reference precise subsets of changing data.

• Semantically linked terms describing wheat data so we can share harvest and related information around the world

• A unified repository certification scheme to reduce confusion and improve trust.

Initial Products—adopt one today!

But what does this all have to do with RDA?

1. RDA focusses on developing “gateways”

2. RDA doesn’t do “architecture,” but it does provide a level of unity.

3. RDA plays both globally and locally—Think “glocal”.

Distribution of 2,353 Individual RDA Members in 96 Countries 12 September 2014

Other6%Private

13%

Government18% Academia

63%

Map courtesy traveltip.org

Europe50%

North America36%

Austral-pacific 5%

Africa 3%

SouthAmerica 1%

Asia 5%

Regional RDAs

• Australian National Data Service, RDA/United States, RDA/Europe,

• Implement RDA deliverables locally and enhance adoption.

• Ensure regional or national issues are addressed globally.

• Support plenaries and support attendance at plenaries.

But what does this all have to do with RDA?

1. RDA focusses on developing “gateways”

2. RDA doesn’t do “architecture,” but it does provide a level of unity.

3. RDA plays both globally and locally—Think glocal.

4. RDA fosters relationships, interfaces, and connections.

5. RDA provides a “neutral place” to identify and work through friction.

RDA Interest Groups

1. Agricultural Data Interoperability IG2. Big Data Analytics IG3. Biodiversity Data Integration IG4. Brokering IG5. Community Capability Model IG6. Data Fabric IG7. Data for Development8. Data in Context IG9. Defining Urban Data Exchange for Science IG*10.Development of cloud computing capacity and

education in developing world research11.Digital Practices in History and Ethnography IG12.Domain Repositories Interest Group13.Education and Training on handling of research

data14.ELIXIR Bridging Force IG*15.Engagement IG16.Federated Identity Management17.Geospatial IG*18.Libraries for Research Data*

19.Long tail of research data IG20.Marine Data Harmonization IG21.Metabolomics22.Metadata IG23.PID Interest Group24.Preservation e-Infrastructure IG25.RDA/CODATA Legal Interoperability IG26.RDA/CODATA Materials Data, Infrastructure &

Interoperability IG27.RDA/WDS Certification of Digital Repositories IG28.RDA/WDS Publishing Data Cost Recovery for

Data Centres29.RDA/WDS Publishing Data IG30.Reproducibility IG*31.Research data needs of the Photon and Neutron

Science community32.Research Data Provenance33.Service Management IG34.Structural Biology IG35.Toxicogenomics Interoperability IG

* in review

Plenary 5 San Diego, California9 - 11 March 2015

©2013 Pecoff Studios Inc

RDA Organisational Framework

Get involved!

• Join RDA as an individual member supporting our principles at http://rd-alliance.org

• Join as an Organisational Member (nominal fee) or an Organisational Affiliate (jointly sponsored efforts).

• Initiate or join an Interest Group

• Propose or join a Working Group

• Attend the RDA Plenaries

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.

—Henry Ford

Summary

• Infrastructure is created in phases with the final consolidation phase relying on gateways and bridges.

• Diversity is a central problem, but only diversity absorbs diversity.

• Networking and interconnection are the way to solve complex problems.

• Need to be constantly, but lightly, managing tension between bottom-up chaos and stifling, top-down control.

• We are in more global and democratic world, but also a more local world. Coalition politics with new kinds of coalitions because there are new kinds of identity.

• Data science needs to focus on relationships, connections, interfaces.

• You must participate “glocally” to succeed.

• Responding to change is more important than following a plan.

• RDA provides mechanisms to address all of the above!

Info: enquiries@rd-alliance.org

@resdatall