Events

In collaboration with the International Science Council, the Forum for Open Research in MENA will host a free seminar and workshop on the 28^th of February, titled:

Open Science and the Dissemination of Scholarly Knowledge

Normalising Pre-prints: The MENA Dialogue

This 3-hour event is part of our Community Development Series, and will explore solutions for the implementation of pre-prints by various stakeholder groups. Participants will gain an understanding of the global Open Science landscape and the work of the International Science Council on Scholarly Publishing. The interactive sessions will explore how scientists and other stakeholders of the scientific community can contribute to the use of preprints so that they will be better equipped to partake in the growth of Open Science in the MENA region. 

More details of this free event, and to register >> here 

Coscine is a research data management (RDM) platform for the storage, management and archiving of research and metadata generated in the context of research projects. The service supports researchers in RDM and the preservation of good scientific practice.
https://coscine.de

Speaker: Dr. Ilona Lang

About the talk series: https://www.nfdi.de/talks/

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ehlb6A3lLLo

The goal of this event is to describe the reasoning behind the development of the Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework (CDIF), to give a detailed picture of how it is currently envisioned and what activities, functions, and standards it will encompass, and to provide a current status of the work.

The EC-funded WorldFAIR project is coordinated by CODATA, with RDA as a major partner, and will produce an initial draft of the CDIF recommendations. Building on WorldFAIR, and other expert communities, a Working Group and Advisory Group have been established to oversee the development of CDIF. It is expected that CDIF will persist beyond the scope of the initial WorldFAIR Project, and include not only the eleven domain case studies, but also other interested communities. Efforts will be made to align with major global initiatives and infrastructures addressing data interoperability (such as EOSC, ARDC, UNECE Modern Statistics).

The first part of the workshop will focus on the functional drivers and requirements for defining a set of activities to support the FAIR principles, and to show the organisational and system dynamics which make CDIF necessary. The development process and questions around the organisation of the work will also be described. The draft of CDIF to be presented identifies activities and information implicit in adherence to and support for the FAIR principles. CDIF is built on top of the generic foundation provided by the FAIR Digital Object Framework, to address interoperability at the level of applications rather than exchange protocols. CDIF reflects the granular needs for domain metadata being expressed in broadly understood terms where possible, supplemented by domain-specific semantics where absolutely required.

The second part of the workshop will show how these research and data requirements can be translated into system functions and services, and how these can be supported through the use of existing standards and specifications for the needed information. These will include specifications such as DCAT, Schema.org, DDI-CDI, SKOS/XKOS, SSSOM, OGC Observations & Measurements/I-PROV, etc. Specific features of the standards and how they can be used in combination will be addressed, although not at a technical level. Feedback from participants will be elicited, and their input collected to help us inform the ongoing development work.

The workshop will be interactive and built around structured discussion of the draft CDIF.

Target Audience:

Implementers and practitioners at all levels who are concerned with FAIR, especially in cross-domain or cross-infrastructure scenarios. The workshop is intended for those who wish a more detailed understanding of CDIF, and who may wish to implement or even become involved in its development in future.

Part One: FAIR Functional Drivers and Requirements

13:00-13:30 UTC: Presentation of FAIR Activities and Information Objects

13:30-14:30 UTC: Structured review of the relevant sections of the CDIF Draft

14:30-15:00 UTC: Break

Part Two: System Functions and Supporting Standards

15:00-15:30 UTC: Presentation of functional areas and candidate standards

15:30-16:30 UTC: Structured review of the relevant sections of the CDIF Draft

Organisational Note:

The workshop will be recorded and the recordings will be made available via CODATA Vimeo. If you plan to attend the event virtually, kindly note the Data Statement for CODATA Zoom at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QdZMRNs9h3Md4ArIiJepR15f3MLOYros/view?usp=sharing

All attendees, onsite and online are expected to comply with the CODATA Code of Conduct: https://codata.org/about-codata/codata-policies-and-guidelines/code-of-conduct/

The goal of this workshop is to explain the mechanism employed by DDI-CDI and how it can most easily be leveraged to enhance the reusability of research data. DDI-CDI is a model-based, platform- and technology-independent specification designed to supplement the metadata holdings of data disseminators, archives, and producers. By allowing for an expression of structural metadata, with references to external controlled vocabularies and ontologies, and by connecting metadata records intended for discovery, provenance, and process description, it can act as a connector format which is independent of domain standards. Typically, it can be produced in a programmatic fashion from existing metadata records held in more domain-specific models, although it can also be used as a stand-alone specification. It supports granular, machine-actionable description of a wide variety of data, from traditional wide data files to event/streaming data to key-value (“big”) data and multidimensional cubes.

This workshop will present an overview followed by a series of worked examples, with an exploration of different types of implementations and features of the standard in each. The intent is to give more than an overview, to help participants understand not only what DDI-CDI is intended to do, but also how it works to complement other popular metadata models and standards. Different syntax representations of the standards will be discussed.

DDI has long published metadata standards for the social, economic and behavioural sciences, which are widely used among data producers and archives, including those in the CESSDA network, such as the Swedish National Data Service, the UK Data Archive, Sciences Po, Gesis, Sikt - the Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research and many more. DDI-CDI represents an evolution reflecting the growing importance of cross-disciplinary research and the requirement for data services to describe new types of data coming from other domains. The result is a specification which can describe any data in a domain agnostic fashion and is useful within domains for which other DDI specifications are not relevant. Because of this domain independent feature, it has become central to the WorldFAIR project work on the Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework.

Each part comprises three topics, which will each be structured around a presentation and discussion.

Target Audience:

This workshop is intended to be useful to both technical and operational staff working in organisations which produce, archive, integrate, and disseminate quantitative research data, regardless of domain orientation. It is intended to address questions about what the practical implementation of systems supporting the FAIR principles will look like, and will appeal to infrastructure players who are concerned with broadening and deepening the reusability of their data holding through enhanced data and provenance description.

Part One: FAIR Functional Drivers and Requirements

13:00-13:30: The Variable Cascade: concepts, measures and observations.

13:30-14:00: Data Structures: the roles of concepts and variables.

14:00-14:30: Provenance: connecting data through process.

14:30-15:00 UTC: Break

Part Two: System Functions and Supporting Standards

15:00-15:30: Data integration across domains and structures.

15:30-16:00: Process description and alignment with PROV.

16:00-16:30: DDI-CDI as the connection point for a set of related specifications (CDIF example).

Organisational Note:

The workshop will be recorded and the recordings will be made available via CODATA Vimeo. If you plan to attend the event virtually, kindly note the Data Statement for CODATA Zoom at: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QdZMRNs9h3Md4ArIiJepR15f3MLOYros/view?usp=sharing

All attendees, onsite and online are expected to comply with the CODATA Code of Conduct: https://codata.org/about-codata/codata-policies-and-guidelines/code-of-conduct/

How can I practically apply the FAIR Principles in my work? How do I know what is the right FAIR-enabling tool for me? To help answer these questions, FAIR-IMPACT will be launching the first of three open calls for financial support in April 2023. In this first open call, the project will be encouraging applications to participate in either of two defined support actions designed to help participants learn how to use specific tools, methods, and approaches to start (or continue) their journey to becoming more FAIR-enabling. For more information on the open call, including FAQs and an Expression of Interest form, please view the dedicated webpage.

On March 27, FAIR-IMPACT will be hosting a webinar to introduce potential applicants and other interested parties to the open call and to provide details about the two support actions on offer. The session will outline who the support action is aimed at, what will be expected of participants, how it will benefit them,  the skills and expertise necessary to participate, and how to apply. There will be time during the webinar for attendees to ask questions they have about any aspects of the open call.

When: Monday 27 March 12:00-13:00 UTC

Where: Online

Register for the webinar here.