RDA Governance

Research Data AllianceOrganization and Governance

Dr. Kathleen Fontaine

Managing Director, RDA/US

GEOSS S&T Workshop

March 26, 2015

Norfolk, VA

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Topics

▪ A Bit of Background▪ Governance▪ The Importance of the User

RDA/US Work Funded by

3Research Data Driving Solutions to Address Complex Scientific and Societal Challenges

Who is most at risk to contract asthma?

How can we increase wheat yields?

How can we best address energy needs and sustain the environment?

Image: Ceinturion, Wikipedia

How accurate is the Standard Model of Physics?

Image: Lucas Taylor


4Data-Sharing Driving Innovation Across Sectors and Communities

So - simply share data, right?

…….not quite


5World-wide Efforts on Infrastructure to Support Research Data Sharing, Access, Use

Science, Humanities, Arts Communities

E-Infrastructure professionals, data analysts, data center staff, …

Data Scientists

Libraries, Archives, Repositories, Museums


6Many Infrastructure Building Blocks Needed to Accelerate Progress

Institutional Data Sharing Practice

Data Access and Distribution Policy

Data Discovery Tools

Common Metadata Standards

Digital Object Identifiers

Data CitationStandards

Data Analytics Algorithms

Data Preservation Practice

Data Scientists and Expert Support

Sustainable Economic Models

Curation Practice and Policy

Auditing, Certification and Reporting Practice


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Research Data Alliance

▪ Created to accelerate the development of research data sharing infrastructure worldwide

▪ build social, organizational and technical infrastructure

▪ reduce barriers to data sharing and exchange

▪ accelerate the development of coordinated global data infrastructure

▪ broad range of infrastructure pieces developed based on need


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RDA Governance

Features Openness, Transparency, and Consensus

▪ through high-level governance bodies

▪ through community-based groups

▪ through individual contributions

▪ through emphasis on real outputs that solve real barriers to research data sharing


9

RDA Organizational Structure

RDA Council Responsible for overarching mission, vision, impact of RDA

Technical Advisory BoardResponsible for Technical roadmap and interactions

Secretary-General and Secretariat

Responsible for administration and operations

Organizational Advisory Board and Organizational

AssemblyResponsible for organizational

and strategic advice

Working GroupsResponsible for impactful, outcome-oriented efforts

Interest GroupsResponsible for defining and refining common issues

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RDA/US Work Funded byRDA Colloquium (Research Funders)

Operational and community sponsorship

* *

*

*

* heavy user involvement

*

*

RDA Organizational Members

RDA Affiliate Members

40% 33

%20%

7%

Academia/ Research SMEsOther Policy/

Funding Agency

Organizational Members Composition

IT Consultancy/Development

5%SMEs5%

Other 9%

Government/Public Services

24%

Academia/Research

57%

57% 24

%5% 5% 9%

Organizational Members Composition

Academia/ Research

Government /Public Services

SMEs IT Consultancy/Development

Other

14Technical Advisory Board


▪ Current membership• Beth Plale, Director Data to Insight Center, Professor of Computer Science, Indiana University Bloomington

- TAB Co-chair

• Andrew Treloar Director of Technology, Australian National Data Service - TAB Co-chair

• Bridget Almas, Senior Software Developer and Architect, Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University

• Simon J D Cox, Senior Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO Australia

• Peter Fox, Tetherless World Constellation Chair, Professor of Earth and Environmental Science and Computer Science, Director of the Information Technology and Web Science Program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

• Françoise Genova, Director, Strasbourg Astronomical Data Centre CDS

• Chuang Liu, Professor, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGSNRR/CAS)

• Carole Palmer, Professor, Information School at the University of Washington

• Susanna-Assunta Sansone, Associate Director and Principal Investigator, University of Oxford e-Research Centre, Consultant for the Nature Publishing Group (NPG)

• Jamie Shiers, Information Technology Department, CERN & Manager of the Data Preservation for Long-Term Analysis in High Energy Physics (DPHEP)

• Rainer Stotzka, Leader of “Software Methods” department and software development group “Big Data”, Institute for Data Processing and Electronics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)

• Peter Wittenburg, The Language Archive, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics

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Create -> Adopt -> Use

▪ Birds-of-a-Feather – groups meeting at Plenaries to gauge broader interest in a topic

▪ Interest Groups – longer-lived discussion forums that spawn Working Groups as specific pieces of needed infrastructure are identified.

▪ Working Groups – 12-18 month efforts to build, adopt, and use specific pieces of infrastructure

▪ Code, policy, infrastructure, standards, or best practices that are adopted and used by communities to 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 everyone

▪ Efforts for which working scientists and researchers can start today


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1. Brokering Governance

2. Data Citation

3. Data Description Registry Interoperability

4. Data Foundation and Terminology

5. Data Type Registries

6. Metadata Standards Directory

7. PID Information Types

8. Practical Policy

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

10.RDA/WDS Publishing Data

Bibliometrics

11.RDA/WDS Publishing Data Services

12.RDA/WDS Publishing Data Workflows

13.Repository Audit and Certification DSA–WDS Partnership

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

15.Wheat Data Interoperability WG

RDA Working Groups

* in review


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1. Agricultural Data Interoperability2. Active Data Management Plans*3. Big Data Analytics4. Biodiversity Data Integration5. Brokering6. Community Capability Model7. Data Fabric 8. Data for Development9. Data Foundations and Terminology*10.Data in Context 11.Data Rescue*12.Defining Urban Data Exchange for Science IG*13.Development of cloud computing capacity and

education in developing world research14.Digital Practices in History and Ethnography15.Domain Repositories Interest Group16.Education and Training on handling of research

data17.ELIXIR Bridging Force18.Engagement 19.Ethics and Social Aspects of Data*20.Federated Identity Management21.Geospatial*22.Libraries for Research Data

23.Long tail of research data24.Marine Data Harmonization25.Metabolomics26.Metadata27.National Data Services*28.PID 29.Preservation e-Infrastructure 30.Quality of Urban Life31.RDA/CODATA Legal Interoperability 32.RDA/CODATA Materials Data, Infrastructure &

Interoperability 33.RDA/WDS Certification of Digital Repositories 34.RDA/WDS Publishing Data Cost Recovery for

Data Centres35.RDA/WDS Publishing Data 36.Repository Platforms for Research*37.Reproducibility 38.Research data needs of the Photon and Neutron

Science community39.Research Data Provenance40.Service Management 41.Structural Biology 42.Toxicogenomics Interoperability43.Vocabulary Services*

RDA Interest Groups


* in review

How RDA is Growing

Total RDA Community Members: 2783 +138 from Feb. 15

May - July 13

Aug - Oct 13

Nov - Jan 14 Feb - Apr 14 May - July 14

Aug - Oct 15

Nov - Jan 15 Feb -Mar 15

393

993

1276

1658

2051

24072645

2783

RDA Members from 95 countries

COUNTRY MEMBERS

USA 968

UK 318

Germany 203

Netherlands

155

Italy 120

Australia 108

France 104

Ireland 83

Canada 73

Finland 66

RDA TOP 20 Countries

COUNTRY MEMBERS

Spain 46

Greece 44

Japan 40

Switzerland

37

India 31

China 31

Belgium 30

Denmark 25

Sweden 21

South Africa

16

+67+2 +4 +1+3 +3 +4

+1

+1 +1 +5 +2 +6 +1

RDA Regional Membership

Asia6% Africa

2%

North America37%

South America1%

Europe50%

Australia4%

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Data Type Registries Deliverables: System of data type registries, formal model for describing types, working model of a registry.Initial Adopters and Users: CNRI, International DOI Foundation, Deep Carbon Observatory

Practical Policy Deliverables: Survey of policies in production use, test bed of machine actionable policies, deployment of 5 policy sets, policy starter kitsInitial Adopters and Users: RENCI, DataNet Federation Consortium, CESNET, Odum Institute, EUDAT

Persistent Identifier Information Types Deliverables: Minimal set of PID types, API Initial Adopters and Users: Data Conservancy, DKRZ

Data Foundations and Terminology Deliverables: Common vocabulary for data terms, formal definitions and open registry for data termsInitial Adopters and Users: EUDAT, DKRZ, Deep Carbon Observatory, CLARIN, EPOS

Role of the User - Deliverables and Adoption


23Users Contribute and Collaborate Globally and Locally

▪ Individual Members▪ National and Regional Offices

• Coordinate national goals with RDA goals• Provide national focus • Act as a conduit• Focal points for funding• Current offices in Europe, Australia, Canada, Japan, and US• Coming soon to Germany, France, Brazil, China.......


RDA Organizations

Press & Media

Policy/Funding Agency

Large Enterprise

IT Consultancy/Development

SMEs

Other

Government/Public service

Academia

19

43

61

89

154

161

423

1833

+21

+6

+8

+4

+8

Growth from Feb. 2015

+91

RDA Professional Community

Researcher Other

Prog.Manager/Proj. Manager

Professor

LibrarianIT Specialist/ IT

ArchitectStudent

Advisor/ConsultantCEO/Managing Director/Chief

Executive

CTO/IT Director

Policy development manager/Policy Consultant

Journalist/Editor/Copywriter

575

482

331

301

280

264

145

131

125

82

51

16

+32+26

+ 7+ 1

+24+14

+ 15+ 9

+ 5+3

+ 2

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RDA/US

▪ RDA/US Goals:• Leverage and implement RDA deliverables in the US to amplify impact• Build the RDA community within the US• Collaborate closely with other RDA “regions” on key programs and

initiatives• Contribute to RDA “international” efforts and leadership


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▪ Outreach▪ Over three dozen presentations and articles done for various groups▪ Panels, sessions, and conferences around special topics

▪ Deliverables Amplification▪ Five Working Groups presented their deliverables at Plenary 4▪ Path from output to adoption between now and March▪ Continual cycles of output and adoption as WGs mature

▪ Student/Early Career Engagement▪ First round of Fellowships and Internships awarded this summer▪ Awardees go to Plenary to present their work

Pilot Activities - US Focus


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Work Methodologies

▪ Plenaries every six months, in September and March• Sept 2015 (P6) - Paris• March 2016 (P7) - Japan• Sept 2016 (P8) - Canada or US, joint day with SciDataCon

▪ Working Group Chair meetings, every six months in June and November

▪ Remote participation the norm


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Governance Main Points

▪ Openness and Transparency▪ Consensus▪ Mix of individual and organizational members▪ Mix of monetary and in-kind contribution▪ Flexible, distributed funding mechanisms▪ Balance of bottom-up and top-down approaches [aka,

light-touch structure]▪ FOCUS on OUTPUT that is RELEVANT to the USER by

REQUIRING users to be included FROM THE BEGINNING!!!

▪ Own as little as possible


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Thank You and Questions

[email protected]

[email protected]

rd-alliance.org


RDA Governance

Data & Analytics

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