Research Data Management Assistance at Virginia Tech: Posts - Data Management and Curation Services

Attending International Data Week 2018 in Botswana

As a co-Chair for the World Data Systems/Research Data Alliance (WDS/RDA) working group on Assessment of Data Fitness for Use, Jonathan Petters enjoyed the fantastic opportunity to attend International Data Week 2018 (and 12th RDA Plenary) in Gaborone, Botswana in mid-November (where there are vervet monkeys).

The Assessment of Data Fitness for Use working group developed a checklist by which research data repository managers, or a separate external entity such as the CoreTrustSeal, could evaluate a sample of a repository’s data holdings for their fitness for use.

Jonathan and his fellow co-Chair Marina Soares e Silva (Elsevier) presented on his working group’s progress to date in two separate sessions (for the Domain Repositories Interest Group and WDS Data Repositories Day).

(left to right) Martina Soares e Silva, Jonathan Petters, Wade Bishop, Luiz Bonino).

Jonathan and Marina also ran a working group session in which their working group’s progress was placed in an appropriate context of other research and projects. Wade Bishop (University of Tennessee-Knoxville) presented surveying USGS researchers on their data-seeking behavior. Focusing on the data user perspective was a great contrast to the data provider-centric approach the working group took. Luiz Bonino (GOFAIR) presented on his group's’ efforts in automating evaluation of the FAIR principles, again in contrast with the more manual approach of the working group.

All of the presentation slides from the working group session can be found here. The working group co-Chairs received a great amount of feedback in person, within collaborative notes, and within the other sessions at which they presented. They intend to incorporate this feedback into a revised version of the checklist as part of our 'finalized' deliverables to be presented at the next RDA Plenary in Philadelphia.

Two other items of note:

1. This conference was opened by the President of Botswana, His Excellency Mokgweetsi Eric Keabetswe Masisi. Such an opening act doesn’t happen at every conference!
2. It wasn’t all work and play; Jonathan did take a trip to Mokoldi Nature Preserve on the last day. There he saw giraffes, kudu, a hyena, a wildebeest, and zebras (the national animal of Botswana). And he was treated to a spectacular sunset.