Bridging Data Lifecycles: Tracking Data Use via Data Citations
April 5-6, 2012 at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO.
Please join us for a workshop on data citation and data use geared to the interests of data manager specialists and librarians. Data citations are increasingly seen as being critical to enabling scientific results to be traced back to their underlying data. Data citations also promote the transparency of scientific work by making data more discoverable, and enable scientists, data managers, and data centers to be credited for producing useful data. Presentations will focus data lifecycles, current options for data citation and data reuse, and will highlight pilot projects in implementing citation standards and practices. Dr. Tim Killeen, Assistant Director for Geosciences at the National Science Foundation will provide the keynote address. Other presenters include Joan Starr of the California Digital Library and Mark Parsons of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Additional speakers are listed on the workshop web page.
Limited space is available for attendees. More information and the registration form are at http://library.ucar.edu/data_workshop/. Please register by March 23 to ensure your participation. Once registered, participants will be provided with logistical details and any updates to the agenda.
Please feel free to share this information with your colleagues. Contact Matt Mayernik at mayernik@ucar.edu or Karon Kelly at kkelly@ucar.edu if you have questions.
This month we are pleased to have some out of town colleagues speaking about a variety of topics related to content management.
Speakers:
Jerry Pan, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), "Geoscience Data Repository in Digital Object Model and Open-Source Frameworks: Provenance Applications"
Ajinkya Kulkarni, University of Alabama, Huntsville, "Utilizing Drupal, an Open Source Web Framework to Support Science 2.0 Projects"
Erin Robinson, ESIP Foundation, "ESIP Commons: Publishing Non-Traditional Content"
When: Wednesday, March 21, 4:00 - 6:00
Where: Boulder Outlook Hotel
Schedule:
4:00 - 5:00: speakers
5:00 - 6:00: social
We are dovetailing with the UCAR SEA 2012 Software Engineering Conference, which allows us to have these speakers from out of town. This is why we are meeting at 5:00 instead of our usual 4:00. (And also why we are meeting on the 4th Wednesday of the month instead of the 3rd.)
Speakers:
Jay Alameda, NCSA, "Bringing Modern Tools to High Performance Computing - with a Spotlight on XSEDE and Blue Waters"
Chris Mattmann, JPL, "Understanding how to Best Leverage Open Source Data Management Software: A Roadmap"
When: Wednesday, February 22, 5:00 - 7:00
Where: Boulder Outlook Hotel
Schedule:
5:00 - 5:30 gather, social
5:30 - 6:00 Jay Alameda
6:00 - 6:30 Chris Mattmann
6:30 - 7:00 social
BLAST (BESSIG Lively Activists Speaking Topically)
Speakers:
Mike Daniels, NCAR, "From Sensor to Archive: Data Flow, Tools, and Management of Observational Data at NCAR's Earth Observing Laboratory"
Ruth Duerr, NSIDC, "Stewardship and Access - Activities of the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) "
When: Wednesday, January 18, 4:00 - 6:00
Where: The Boulder Outlook Hotel
Schedule: 4:00 - 5:00 talks, 5 - 10 minute business meeting, 5:00 - 6:00 social (more or less)
Panel Report and Discussion on Recent NSF EarthCube Charette
According to the EarthCube web site, http://earthcube.ning.com/, "The goal of EarthCube is to transform the conduct of research by supporting the development of community-guided cyberinfrastructure to integrate data and information for knowledge management across the Geosciences."
During November 1 - 4, 2011, the NSF held the EarthCube Charette in Washington, D.C. The Charette was intended to be "the first stage in an iterative process to build a community-based cyberinfrastructure," and an "opportunity for face-to-face interaction and feedback among groups that are suggesting designs for EarthCube and a broad, diverse set of the geosciences and cyberinfrastructure communities."
Panel members for our meeting are Charette attendees who will share their thoughts and experiences. Perhaps we'll finally understand the answer to the question, "What is a charette, anyway?"
Panel members:
Michael Wiltberger, HAO/NCAR
Russ Rew, Unidata/UCAR
Seth McGinnis, CISL/NCAR
Scott Peckham, CSDMS/INSTAAR/CU Boulder
Chris MacDermaid, CSU CIRA Fort Collins/NOAA ESRL
Location:
This meeting will be held at the Boulder Outlook Hotel and Suites in the Chatauqua room. The Hotel is near Aurora and 28th St Frontage Road.
Schedule:
4:00 - 5:00: panel and discussion
5:00 - 6:00: social
If you attended the Charette and are interested in participating in the panel please contact me ASAP! The only requirement is a willingness to tell us a little about your experience at the Charrette. Thank you!
NetCDF for the Masses
Ed Hartnett, Unidata, UCAR
"Why should anyone consider using netCDF to store their data?"
NOTE THE *NEW* NEW LOCATION: This meeting will be held at the Boulder Outlook Hotel and Suites in the Chatauqua room. The Hotel is near Aurora and 28th St Frontage Road*.
We are trying this new location that offers a private room with food and beverages in a non smoking environment. The bar menu includes starters, soups, salads, sandwiches, burgers, burger alternatives, steaks, desserts, and 9 beers on tap, most of them local. The Outlook has graciously offered to let us use the room for free for this meeting. If we can generate sufficient sales for them, they might let us come back.
Schedule:
4:00 - 5:00: talk and discussion
5:00 - 6:00: social
Hope to see you there!
*If driving from 30th and Colorado, don't try to turn left from Colorado onto the 28th St Frontage Road, it is illegal. Instead head south on 30th and turn right on Aurora.
Place: NCAR Center Green, Boulder Colorado, USA
Time: Friday, 23 September 2011, 8:00am-5:30pm
Fee: Free - all are welcome (registration requested, see below)
This one-day workshop is focused on how the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) can contribute to studying climate change, how GEOSS can enable broader community access to climate information and knowledge; and how scientists can manage and work with integrated data sources having different levels of quality.
This workshop is free and open to the public.
To confirm attendance, please register here: https://portal.opengeospatial.org/public_ogc/register/110923geoss.php
For the complete agenda, please visit: http://www.ieee-earth.org/event/geoss-workshop-xliii-climate
(Posted for Siri Jodha Khalsa)
Panel discussion on Peer Review of Scientific Data
"Data centers have few established practices for peer review of data. Indeed there is no clear definition of what peer review of data really means. Is it a review of data accuracy or validity, or is it a review of data documentation to ensure complete description of uncertainty and context? Despite these challenges, scientists and data managers have a professional and ethical responsibility to do their best to meet the data publication goals asserted by AGU." [Parsons, M. A., R. Duerr, and J.-B. Minster (2010),Data Citation and Peer Review, Eos Trans. AGU,91(34), 297, doi:10.1029/2010EO340001.]
Wednesday, September 21, 2011, 4:00 - 6:00, Millenium Hotel's Boulder Creek Living Room.
Note that the Millenium is graciously providing us this room including wireless connectivity without charge. Please attend this meeting and consider purchasing a drink or appetizer to support the Millenium and our continued use of this room and its amenities.
Who:
Mark Parsons, Program Manager, Senior Associate Scientist, NSIDC
Matt Mayernik, Research Data Services Specialist, NCAR library
Eric Kihn, Deputy Director of the National Geophysical Data Center, NOAA
Karen Simmons, Experiment Manager for Galileo UVS/EUV instruments and archivist for data from Voyager and Galileo. Also, current archive specialist on an archiving grant through NASA for very old (1969, 71,75 etc) planetary data., provider to NASA PDS, LASP
Rob Wilson, Scientist studying magnetospheres of the outer planets, using PDS data, LASP
Topics for discussion include:
- Should data peer review differ from conventional document review? If so, how and why? What does peer review of a dataset really mean?
- How are peer-reviewed datasets certified? Everyone knows the peer reviewed journals and has some notion of their impact. How does that work for data?
- Who conducts the review? Who is the "editor" to coordinate the review?
- Does peer review imply more responsibility or accountability for the data "publisher"?
- One critical discussion should be about what facility is accepting the data and how they operate, what requirements they have for peer review and discussion of how well that's worked in the past. Their perspective is often quite different from that of a scientist.
Please join us in this discussion!
The discussion will be followed by a short business meeting for feedback and planning purposes.
NOTE THE NEW LOCATION: This meeting will be held at the Millenium Hotel in the Boulder Creek Living Room. This private room is adjacent to a bar where food and beverages can be purchased and brought into the meeting.
Note that the Millenium is graciously providing us this room including wireless connectivity without charge. Please attend this meeting and consider purchasing some comestible fare to support the Millenium and our continued use of this room and its amenities.
Who:
Gary Strand, The NCAR Community Earth System Model and the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. [Gary's slides: Gary Strand Aug 17 2011 BESSIG presentation]
Siri Jodha Khalsa will give a short summary of a workshop he led at this summer's INSPIRE conference titled "What is Interoperability and How do we Measure it?" followed by an open discussion of the topic. (INSPIRE is the panEuropean spatial data infrastructure initiative. Workshop presentations are available at: INSPIRE conference presentations.)
Leonard Sitongia, Challenges in Legacy Software and Scientific Methods, followed by Steve Olding from the NASA Earth Science Data Systems Technology Infusion Working Group (via Skype), A Toolbox for Organization-wide Infusion of Data Systems Technologies.
When: Wednesday, August 17, 2011, 4:00 - 6:00
Where: The Boulder Creek Living Room of The Millenium Hotel. Please see the web site for directions to the hotel. The Boulder Creek Living Room is found by entering the lobby, passing through the doorway on the right, then left through another doorway into the room.
Food items available include: appetizers, salads, a burger, wraps, and entrees, ranging in cost from $6 to a $29 entree. Most items are $10 or less.
Another BLAST!
A time to listen and discuss as members present their work and areas of interest.
Who:
- Doug Fowler, GLAS and MODIS Data Management and Services at NSIDC
- Jeff McWhirter, A RAMADDA Blast
- Anne Wilson, Report on Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) Federation Summer Meeting
If anyone else is interested in speaking at this meeting, please contact Anne.
After the presentations we'll have a short business meeting for planning purposes. At the meeting we'll discuss the possibility of holding future meetings at the Millenium Hotel.
When: Tuesday, July 19, 2011, 4:00 - 6:00 PM
Where: Room A200, LASP Space Technology Building, 1234 Innovation Drive, Boulder, Colorado
LASP is located on the University of Colorado's East Campus Research Park. A map and directions are available on the LASP Address and Directions page. The building sits just off Colorado Avenue, immediately adjacent to CU's new, very large biotechnology building that is currently under construction. Look for the tallest cranes in town, we're next door to the East. Free parking is available.
BLAST: Bessig Lively Activists Speaking Topically
Come listen and discuss as Vince, Jeff, Steve, Peter, Doug, and Kimberly present their work and areas of interest. Followed by 10 - 15 minute business meeting to discuss future planning. Snacks will be provided.
When: Thursday, June 23, 2011, 4:00 - 6:00 PM
Where: Room A200, LASP Space Technology Building, 1234 Innovation Drive, Boulder, Colorado
LASP is located on the University of Colorado's East Campus Research Park. A map and directions are available on the LASP Locations and Directions. The building sits just off Colorado Avenue, immediately adjacent to CU's new, very large biotechnology building that is currently under construction. Look for the tallest cranes in town, we're next door to the East. Free parking is available.
At the BESSIG planning meeting on Wednesday we scheduled meetings for Thursday, June 23 and Tuesday, July 19, 4:00 PM. (See our Calendar ). These meetings will be BLASTs: BESSIG Lively Activists Speaking Topically. That means people are on deck to present their work, area of interest, or whatever. The goal is to for us to get to know each other and our areas of expertise better, and to allow for discussion. Thus, speakers will present for as short or as long as they wish as long as it's "not too long" (TBD). Some speakers may get bumped until later, and that's okay. We'll also work in some time for socializing.
We have six speakers that will be ready on June 23, see the Calendar item to see who they are. We're looking for people to sign up for July 19. If you're interested in sharing with us, go to the that calendar event and put your name on the list under the "Description" section.
We also updated the table of Meeting Topics with some ideas to incubate. We found it particularly liberating to nominate topic organizers that weren't actually present at the meeting. Feel free to update the table with your ideas about meeting topics and organizers.
Also, the group paid it forward by contributing $40 to a kitty (including pledges) for snacks for our next meeting. Thanks, guys!!
An important meeting topic was: beer. There is interest in having beer at our meetings, but institutions have severe limitations on alcohol. Here at CU a recent update of the alcohol policy muddied the waters sufficiently that what is and is not allowed is unclear and is under investigation by our staff. More on this to follow. Suggestions?
Purpose: Plan meeting topics for upcoming year, and hobnob
When: Wednesday, May 18, 2011, 4:00 - 6:00 PM
Where: Room A200, LASP Space Technology Building, 1234 Innovation Drive, Boulder, Colorado
As we've not identified a talk topic for this meeting, we'll use our time to plan meeting topics and, as much as possible, a schedule for the upcoming year. Please come to the meeting with your calendar and specific ideas about meeting topics you would like to hear about or might be interested in presenting. We'll also get to know each other a little better over some light snacks. If all goes well we could be done early.
I have started a Meeting Topic and Organizer List, check it out.
If you can't make this meeting but would like to provide input, send an email to bessig.info@lasp.colorado.edu (which currently comes to me, Anne).
LASP is located on the University of Colorado's East Campus Research Park. A map and directions are available on the LASP locations page. The building sits just off Colorado Avenue, immediately adjacent to CU's new, very large biotechnology building that is currently under construction. Look for the tallest cranes in town, we're next door to the East. Free parking is available.
At our most recent meeting we decided to meet again on Wednesday, 5/18 from 4:00 - 6:00 with this schedule:
4:00 Talk (TBD)
5:00 Business meeting
The group agreed to discuss talk topics and speakers via the web site.
In retrospect, I think this is a very tight schedule, as in general it would be good to provide a speaker with a two week lead time. Plus, we have to find someone that can come at the particular hour. I'm a little nervous about making this goal.
Please contribute to our discussion about identifying a speaker and topic for this upcoming meeting in the Discussion section of the web site. Thank you!
If anyone is available to sponser snacks or beverages for this meeting please contact me.
Anne
I'm really pleased about our launch meeting last night. Thank you to all who attended and also those who showed interest but could not attend.
We had roughly 45 people in attendance from 10 organizations: LASP, NDP LLC, NEON, NOAA, NSIDC, CU Boulder Research Computing, Tech-X Corporation, UNAVCO, UCAR, and UCAR/Unidata.
Ted led us off with a talk about "Convergence and Trust in Earth Space Science Data Systems": Habermann_ConvergenceAndTrust. "Convergence" refers to convergence towards standards and best practices that simplify exchange and use of data. Simplification of that aspect of science is helping us move from data to information to knowledge and finally to wisdom. Generally data producers are involved in transforming data to information, data consumers are involved in transforming information to knowledge, and it takes the community to translate knowledge to wisdom. This path leads to the question of trust: given that we're in an age where people use data and may not know who the data provider was, let alone have communicated with them, how do we say with certainity that our results are correct? This leads to the issue of trust. The topic of trust, being an over arching issue, played a big role in our subsequent discussion at our business meeting. Discussion notes from that meeting will be available soon.
Dave Fulker entertained us with a witty, erudite joke followed by a talk on "Standard Mechanisms for Data Exchange", practices that became "standard" by virtue of being commonplace: Fulker_StandardMechanismsForDataExchange. Dave made a comparison between the history of artifacts and what those artifacts enabled, e.g., writing instruments enabled numerical symbols, scrolls/books/libraries enabled tables and relations, etc. Currently, computers in science have enabled data management, analysis, and visualization as library functions or APIs, e.g., library functions for data formatting. Regarding data analysis and visualization, the power of a system is directly related to the generality and richness of its underlying data model. And now, the web has enabled near real time data flows and remote access to data.
These talks were relevant in our business meeting where we brainstormed about what this group might be or do, what our goals might be, who is available for contributing and what to do next. In Ted's terms, we are in a stage of ferment, trying to focus our energy as a community. Some common themes emerged, such as serving as a resource for those trying to learn how to build good systems. Another theme was trust: how is it currently earned, how can we ensure its viability in our escience world? Are there projects for us there? Notes from this section of meeting are available off the Discussion section.
We decided to meet again in month, on Wednesday, 5/18, from 4:00 - 6:00. (If anyone is available to sponser snacks or beverages for this meeting please contact me.) The first hour will be a talk. The second hour will be a business meeting. The group is tasked with identifying a speaker for the 4:00 time slot.
I really appreciate the strong interest and support I received in launching this group. I'd like to stress here again that this is a community effort. The more people contribute, the more successful we'll be as a group. The good news is that there is a good number of us such that each individual effort does not have to be huge. Please think about what you are able to contribute.
Watch our site as news about the upcoming 5/18 meeting develops.