Research Meeting 21393
Interoperability for Cross-Domain Research: Use Cases for Metadata Standards
( Sep 26 – Oct 01, 2021 )
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https://www.dagstuhl.de/21393
Organizers
- Arofan Gregory (DDI Alliance / CODATA, US)
- Simon Hodson (CODATA - Paris, FR)
- Hilde Orten (NSD - Bergen, NO)
- Joachim Wackerow (GESIS - Mannheim, DE)
Contact
- Heike Clemens (for administrative matters)
External Homepage
Introduction
This workshop builds on the outcomes of two previous Dagstuhl Workshops in 2018 and 2019 on the alignment of standards and technologies for cross-domain data combination. The first two workshops in this series have produced draft guidelines and use case documentation to provide insight into the cross-domain challenges which form the focus of the ISC CODATA Decadal Programme on ‘Making Data Work for Cross-Domain Grand Challenges’.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the workshop will be conducted both in person and virtually.
Scope and Background
To face many of today’s global grand challenges, data is needed from different domains and disciplines, and from different institutional levels, and it must be interoperable to be useful. Research projects in such fields, whether for policy or scientific purposes, often involve the use of data from a wide variety of sources, ranging from specific, local data sets to those supplied by higher-level national and international organizations. A huge proportion of research effort is expended to integrate and harmonize this data so that a meaningful analysis can be conducted.
Global grand challenges require data coming from a wide range of domains and institutional levels, presenting us with diverse issues. This workshop focusses on a set of use cases which exemplify the kinds of issues and solutions which will be required to enable sharing of FAIR data within and across domains. Such capability is necessary if we are to rise to meet these challenges.
Topics
Below are described the topics for the workshop. It is expected that these will evolve during the course of the work, but this should provide initial direction and a starting point.
This set of use cases is intended to provide the basis for guidance to research communities looking to support FAIR data sharing within and across domains. As such the use cases will be further distilled to provide valuable input for the CODATA Decadal Programme and other global initiatives.
1. Core Interoperability Toolkit/Framework
This use case is conceived as a cross-cutting activity for the workshop and looks at a set of cross-domain standards and models which would support the FAIR sharing of data across domains. This work is already started but has yet to progress beyond initial discussions. The idea in this workshop is to draft a more concrete proposal about how the needed range of functions could be supported, and which models/standards could be used. This activity will engage with all the other use cases as possible, in order to support identified requirements.
2. Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration Use Case
The Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration (HMC) promotes the qualitative enrichment of research data by means of metadata – and implements this approach across the whole organization. This case study focuses on oceanographers and earth scientists in Helmholtz centres looking to enable FAIR data sharing within their community. They have already identified an initial approach, based on Schema.org and implemented using JSON-LD. Now they are looking at a more granular description of data to support integration and reuse, using DDI-CDI. This work has started, but is still exploratory.
3. European Social Survey Use Case
This use case looks at the ESS Multi-Level application, and how DDI-CDI and other elements of the core interoperability framework could be used in combination with existing metadata standards and applications to improve the integration of ESS data with data on health, environment, and with other context variables from supra-national sources. The focus will be on leveraging the datum-oriented approach within DDI-CDI, and the process components, to understand how automation could be increased, and other efficiency gains realized.
4. Smart Energy Research Laboratory Use Case
The SERL example shows how manual integration across domain boundaries, at the data-set level, can be improved. This use case will look at how the granular management and dissemination of data, and the automation of some integration functions might be realized. It will also reflect on the requirements for data services to support variable subsetting to meet evolving research needs, especially in the area of data reuse across domain boundaries.
5. InterStat/NGSI-LD Use Case
The InterStat project is looking at incorporating official statistical data and other types of research data into general public information produced by European governmental bodies. The focus is on bridging across the set of domain specific models and standards to support the information channels being employed by the EC. This spans SDMX, DataCube, the NGSI-LD domains, DDI-CDI, SOSA-SSN, and potentially other standards.
6. ENVRI-FAIR Use Case (Proposed)
This is a new proposed use case, which will be discussed and further described in a meeting before the workshop. The idea is to explore how the available standards and models – including the core interoperability framework, as well as relevant domain standards – could be combined to address challenges in data sharing within and outside of the ENVRI-FAIR community.
7. EOSC Life Use Case (Proposed)
This is also a new proposed use case, which will be discussed and further described in a meeting before the workshop. The idea is to explore how the available standards and models – including the core interoperability framework, as well as relevant domain standards – could be combined to address challenges in data sharing within and outside of the EOSC Life community.
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