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Panel Session at DCMI Conference: The Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework: Coordinating Standards for Scalable, Practical FAIR Sharing

Submitted by lyle on Mon, 2022-10-03 15:11

Oct 4, 2022 1:15 PM Eastern Daylight Time

To register: https://www.dublincore.org/conferences/2022/sessions/panel-cross-domain-interoperability-framework/

We are now witnessing the emergence of FAIR data-sharing mechanisms in many areas, with the focus having shifted from the "what" to the "how" in many organizations. In many domains, there are a number of common standards – some which can apply equally across domains, and some specific to the data, processes, and practices within that domain. The challenge of FAIR data sharing – ubiquitous, automated reuse of data and metadata – is particularly acute across domain and infrastructure boundaries, demanding a change in how data are described.

To meet this challenge, it is important to first understand how the different standards and models used to describe data can be employed, so that they speak not only to traditional users, but also to users coming from other domains. One major development in this area is the idea of a FAIR Digital Object Framework (FDOF), where information - both data and metadata - of interest for the discovery and reuse of data can be identified and obtained. The FDOF represents an initial step, but does not address many of the practical issues of interoperability. We must look at the intersection of standards of different types and how they fit into this picture: the idea that every FAIR resource is implemented according to an entirely new set of technical standards is not realistic. The FDOF serves as an agreed way to obtain needed FAIR resources and to learn enough about them to understand some related resources (e.g., metadata schemas) at the level of a protocol. It is not sufficient on its own to produce interoperability, which will require an ability to actually understand the metadata schemas being used. When it comes to standards, some parts of FAIR are better supported than others.

Discovery of FAIR resources increasingly relies on standards and approaches which are widely adopted, and often much the same across domains and institutional boundaries. DCAT, Schema.org, and Dublin-Core-based cataloguing metadata is commonly found in many areas. For other aspects of FAIR however, this degree of domain-agnostic standardization does not exist. Semantics and vocabularies are often deeply domain-dependent, and other important types of metadata needed for effective reuse - structural metadata, provenance, etc. - are also seen in many different forms, reflecting domain practice. Within any given domain, the standards requiring support may be well-understood, and limited in number. The same cannot typically be said when data from other domains is the target of reuse. If we are to make use of the FDOF as intended, we need to have a second tier of domain-agnostic standards which makes this profusion of models, schemas, etc. tractable. Such a second tier should be developed as a mechanism for domain-specific standards to be more easily exchanged and transformed. Technical standards such as RDF, JSON, XML (etc.) may provide a useful foundation, but they are not themselves sufficient.

The standard vocabularies and models which are understandable across domains provide an additional needed layer of interoperability. One good example of this is SKOS: many domains use concept systems of different types. If they are described in SKOS, they can at least be exchanged and processed in a coherent way across domain boundaries, even if the specifics of the concepts themselves need further attention. The EOSC Interoperability Framework introduced this idea of a leveled hierarchy of standards, and it is a useful way to understand what a practical approach to interoperability looks like as we progress from the universal toward the domain- and community specific. This session presents the requirements which lead us to a middle tier of domain-agnostic standards in support of the FDOF, and proposes some candidates for consideration based on implementations and explorations to date. Some examples of such standards are provided, showing how they can work together to provide the complete information set needed to reuse data in a FAIR data-sharing scenario across domain and institutional boundaries.

The focus of the session is on the "interoperability" and "reuse" elements of FAIR, but the session will touch on all aspects of FAIR data sharing, and how it might practically be realized. In particular, we aim to present these ideas to the DCMI community, to get feedback and to understand how this approach may intersect with current activities and thinking in the DCMI community and with related initiatives.

Speakers: Arofan Gregory (DDI Alliance and CODATA), Flavio Rizzolo (Statistics Canada), Franck Cotton (INSEE), Simon Hodson (CODATA).

Register now: "DDI Controlled Vocabularies, the CESSDA Workbench, SKOS and XKOS" Webinar

Submitted by lyle on Mon, 2022-10-03 14:56

Wednesday, 12 October, 14:00-15:30 UTC

Controlled vocabularies are an important form of metadata, and are used for a broad range of purposes. This webinar looks at how controlled vocabularies and similar types of concept schemes are used in and supported by the DDI standards. An introduction is provided for their use as qualifiers for metadata fields, as codelists and classifications for representing variables and response domains, as terms for describing coverage and supporting search, and for their use in defining variables, units, and populations. The support provided by DDI standards – including the XKOS RDF vocabulary – is highlighted. Real-world examples are provided, to illustrate the purposes described.

Presenters: Franck Cotton (INSEE), Christophe Dzikowski (INSEE), Arofan Gregory (DDI Alliance and CODATA)

DDI Alliance is a Sponsor of the 2nd IASSIST Africa Regional Workshop

Submitted by lyle on Mon, 2022-10-03 14:49

The DDI Alliance is happy to sponsor the 2nd IASSIST Africa Regional Workshop, which will be held October 4-7, 2022 at the at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. Jared Lyle, Executive Director of the DDI Alliance, will give a virtual presentation on Thursday, October 6th. For more information about the 2nd IASSIST Africa Regional Workshop, please visit: http://iassistafrica.org/

DDI Technical Committee Meeting Report

Submitted by lyle on Mon, 2022-10-03 00:00

The Technical Committee met in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A. August 1-5, 2022. The focus of this meeting was finalizing the work needed to move DDI-Lifecycle to the COGS production platform.

The COGS production platform, currently used by SDTL, captures the content of DDI-Lifecycle in a set of CSV files and related documentation text which is then transformed into multiple implementation languages (XML, RDF, JSON, UML/XMI, C++, etc.) and a documentation file in Sphinx. The primary goal is to provide a platform that supports intermittent testing, greater access for developers, and generated documentation and implementation structures. This will move DDI-Lifecycle out of being a hand-crafted structure.

In a series of sessions, the members also discussed the focus of the Technical Committee over the next few years given the role of the new Scientific Board and the diversification of the DDI product line.

An executive summary of the meeting is posted on the Technical Committee section of the DDI wiki: https://ddi-alliance.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/DDI4/pages/2847703041/Aug...

Registration for EDDI22 is now open!

Submitted by lyle on Wed, 2022-09-28 13:08

EDDI22, the 14th Annual European DDI User Conference, will be held as an in-person event with online participation. Venue: Sciences Po, Rue Saint-Pères, Saint Germain, Paris.

You can register for EDDI22 from 28 September. Early bird rate closes on 28 October 2022. Registration closes on 15 November.

Conference Fees

Monday 28 November: Online training – Free
Tuesday 29 November: In person Workshops - 60 Euro / per workshop
Weds / Thursday: Conference Early Bird Rate: 220 Euro
Weds / Thursday: Conference Normal Rate: 275 Euro
Weds / Thursday: Conference Online Rate: 50 Euro

Please note that clicking on the registration link will take you to the CNRS site Azur-Colloque, to register and accept payments.

The draft program is now also available. We are offering a Diversity Scholarship, (deadline 15 October 2022). All details are on the Conference Website at: https://eddi22.sciencesconf.org/

Jon Johnson & Mari Kleemola

EDDI 2022 co-chairs

Summary Report: Dagstuhl “Interoperability for Cross-Domain Research: Machine-Actionability & Scalability” Workshop

Submitted by lyle on Thu, 2022-09-22 09:15

The “Interoperability for Cross-Domain Research: Machine-Actionability & Scalability” workshop was held at Schloss Dagstuhl from August 28 to September 2, 2022 (https://www.dagstuhl.de/22353). The workshop was the fourth in a series, starting in 2018, exploring the role of metadata standards and the issues around interoperability in the cross-domain sharing and reuse of research data. It was jointly supported by CODATA, the DDI Alliance, Schloss Dagstuhl, the Leibniz Center for Informatics, and the EU-funded WorldFAIR project, of which CODATA is the coordinator. With the current interest in the FAIR principles and their application to interdisciplinary research data, the focus of the workshop was on specific approaches which could be employed within large-scale infrastructures spanning domain boundaries.

The workshop involved 23 participants from 10 countries, and included experts from many disciplines and organisations, including infectious disease, the social, behavioural, and economic sciences, environmental science, disaster risk reduction, geographic information science, and others. The work was divided into three groups, looking at different aspects of interoperability: integration of primary and reference data; access to sensitive data; and common approaches to large-scale oceans and disaster data. Several WorldFAIR case studies contributed to these groups. A fourth group looked at how the findings in each area could be combined in a cross-domain interoperability framework, and a fifth looked at the RDF expression of some core data and metadata models. Further information on the workshop themes and the groups’ activity can be found on the workshop wiki.

The workshop was very successful in meeting its agreed goals. One was the production of an initial draft of a cross-domain interoperability framework (CDIF), which is central to the work of the WorldFAIR project and other fora looking at cross-domain interoperability. CDIF is a proposed set of recommended best practices for using a coordinated set of domain-agnostic standards – most often as specific subsets or profiles of those standards – to support a core set of functions for cross-domain FAIR reuse. The group work on specific topics has resulted in a number of planned publications, and one or more collaborative projects between some of the participating institutions.

The workshop showed that Schloss Dagstuhl’s reputation as a venue for intensive collaborative work is well-deserved. Over the course of this series of workshops, solutions to the problem of cross-domain interoperability have gained a sharper focus, leading to the concrete outputs which will serve as a basis for ongoing work. A fifth workshop in the series, ‘Defining a core metadata framework for cross-domain data sharing and reuse’, is planned for the fall of 2023, as well as a workshop on the application of DDI’s Cross-Domain Integration standard.

DDI Alliance Public Review: DDI-Codebook (Version 2.6)

Submitted by lyle on Mon, 2022-09-12 15:17

The DDI Alliance (http://www.ddialliance.org/) is pleased to announce the Public Review of DDI-Codebook (Version 2.6). DDI-Codebook is a more light-weight version of the DDI suite of products, intended primarily to document the content, meaning, provenance, and access for a single data set. DDI-Codebook remains in wide use by social science data repositories and by the International Household Survey Network (IHSN), and continues to be maintained and updated by the DDI Alliance.

This new version of the DDI specification includes important updates and new content, including:

Personal identifiers within the Citations section
Clearer and more consistent approach to the use of external controlled vocabularies
Better support for Structured Data Transformation Language (SDTL)
Improved documentation at the element level
High-level information for managing identification, controlled vocabularies, geospatial content, and other cross-element usage

Links to the review package and instructions for comment are found at: https://ddi-alliance.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/DDI4/pages/2848718849/Public+Review+-+Codebook+Version+2.6

We are eager to obtain feedback from a broad community on this specification. The comment period is open until October 31, 2022, and we hope to hear from you!

European Statistical System’s vocabularies modelled using XKOS

Submitted by lyle on Tue, 2022-08-02 09:24

A first preliminary release of the European Statistical System’s most widely used statistical classifications is available on the EU Vocabularies website as Linked Open Data. The vocabularies have been modelled using the XKOS ontology, the extension of SKOS for modeling statistical classifications. XKOS is a product of the DDI Alliance.

UNECE task team providing guidance to the official statistics community about DDI

Submitted by lyle on Fri, 2022-07-22 10:12

A new task team under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) High-level Group for the Modernization of Official Statistics is providing guidance to the official statistics community about how to use DDI and SDMX throughout the statistical production process to support standard-based modernisation.

This guidance will include a high-level analysis of where and how DDI and SDMX can enable Generic Statistical Business Process Model (GSBPM) solutions along with recommendations on which concrete DDI and SDMX classes can be used to best describe Generic Statistical Information Model (GSIM) inputs and outputs of each GSBPM sub-process. Together with GSIM, GSBPM provides a conceptual framework describing the information and process viewpoints of statistical production. In that context, DDI and SDMX provide implementation models to facilitate the production, management and exchange of data and its related metadata.

DDI community members on the task team include Flavio Rizzolo (Statistics Canada) and Dan Gillman (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).

For more information, please visit: https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2021-11/HLG2021_Supporting%20Stand...

EDDI22 Paris - Call for Papers Open

Submitted by lyle on Wed, 2022-06-01 16:31

The 2022 European DDI User Conference (EDDI22) is organized jointly by CDSP [https://cdsp.sciences-po.fr/en/], Center for Socio-Political Data, GESIS [http://www.gesis.org/en/home/] - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences and IDSC [http://idsc.iza.org/] of IZA - International Data Service Center of the Institute for the Study of Labor.

The EDDI22 Conference website is at: [https://eddi22.sciencesconf.org]

It will be hosted by Sciences Po in their buildings at Rue Saint-Peres, in the Saint Germain district, Paris, from Tuesday 29 November 2022 to Thursday 1 December 2022.

Online participation will also be available for those unable to travel.

The Data Documentation Initiative (DDI)[http://www.ddialliance.org/] is an international standard for describing the data produced by surveys and other observational methods in the social, behavioral, economic, and health sciences.

The meeting will bring together DDI users and professionals from all over Europe and the world. Anyone interested in developing, applying, or using DDI is invited to attend and present.

We are seeking presentations, talks, papers on all things DDI:

Case Studies
Mature implementations
Early Implementations
Interplay of DDI with other standards or technologies
Projects in early phases in which DDI is under consideration
Critiques of DDI

Proposed topics of the conference

=================================

We expect that many presentations will cross over between topic areas but that should not discourage proposals, although you will be asked to nominate one category when submitting. Please also note that the possible topics are not exclusive to those listed:

User Needs, Efficient Infrastructures and Improved Quality

----------------------------------------------------------

Rich, standard-based metadata can a) improve the fulfillment of the need for better documentation for researchers and other users; b) improve efficiency by providing infrastructures that drive data collection, data processing and dissemination (e.g. metadata-portals); c) improve quality of our products and processes. There has been increasing interest in metadata in Europe in the context of building EOSC. Papers describing innovative solutions covering the parts of or the whole life-cycle from collection to dissemination based on metadata are encouraged. Papers focusing on metadata driven production are welcomed as well.

Official Statistics

-------------------

National and international statistical organizations share a need for inter-related standards like the Generic Statistical Business Process Model (GSBPM), the Generic Activity Model for Statistical Organizations (GAMSO), the Generic Statistical Information Model (GSIM), the Common Statistical Production Architecture (CSPA), DDI, and SDMX. We welcome papers with a focus on standards in the context of official statistics.

Interoperability, Reusing and Sharing Metadata

----------------------------------------------

DDI is strongly focused on the principles of metadata re-use and interoperability. “Enter once and use many times” is a powerful paradigm that can lead to improved fulfilment of user needs, improved quality and improved efficiency. The FAIR principles emphasize the use of formal, accessible, shared and broadly applicable language for knowledge representation and use of vocabularies and references. Papers that demonstrate achieving interoperability using DDI, or innovative ways to reuse, share and harmonize metadata are welcomed.

Data Harmonization

------------------

Data harmonization can maximize the value of large scale population research in health and social sciences for both documentation and processing purposes. DDI has rich constructs such as Concept, Comparison and Group, and ConceptualVariable and RepresentedVariable in DDI 3.2. We encourage papers which describe projects utilizing DDI or exploring DDI as a basis for harmonizing data.

Incentives to Document Data

---------------------------

The advantage of having good documentation on data is rarely challenged, but it is often left as the last thing (or maybe not even that) to do on a research project. This is because the benefits for researchers come largely from publication and not from the data itself. In this context, changing both the culture and the rewards for documentation and sharing of data might be seen as key motivators. We encourage papers exploring this topic with the focus on DDI.

Open Data and Linked Open Data

------------------------------

As the “Open Data” movement – which aims to make data more freely available – gains more and more attention in science and humanities, especially in the area of government data, the value of data that are easy to access and not limited by restrictive licences is acknowledged. By using “Linked Open Data” technologies the ability to create reproducible and transparent research is enabled. For both, high quality metadata that is standardized and machine-actionable, like DDI metadata, is crucial. We encourage papers in the area of Open Data and Linked Open Data with a focus on DDI.

Privacy and Access Control

--------------------------

The sharing of data or metadata is sometimes restricted due to privacy issues or property rights. Especially, but not exclusively, in health research there is the need to protect the privacy of persons to whom the data refer. In social sciences and humanities, data can contain copyrighted material like texts and photos. Access rights can be determined by well standardized metadata. Thus good metadata management enables the protection of research participants’ and researchers’ rights and ensures an organization’s investment in data and metadata. We encourage papers in the area of concepts or implementations of privacy and access control issues with a focus on DDI.

Metadata versus Data and Related Ethics

---------------------------------------

In the case of surveys, there is usually a clear distinction between data and metadata. However, for example, in the context of qualitative research the boundary between data and metadata is less clear-cut. This issue also arises with big data sources like Facebook and other social media. Ultimately what is perceived to be data and what is perceived to be metadata is defined by research questions. This poses some difficult questions for research ethics when release, use and access to data usually have governance, yet metadata conceivably does not. We encourage papers focusing on this area of tension with the background of DDI.

Software / Tools

----------------

The acceptance and adoption of a “standard” depends on the availability of re-usable tools and software to utilize it. Many new tools that leverage DDI are emerging, and they target different parts of the data life cycle. We encourage papers showcasing tools and software which make use of DDI or parts of it.

Submissions and Presentation forms

===================================

Proposals are welcome for the following presentation forms.

Complete Session: Proposals for complete sessions should list the organizer or moderator and possible participants. The session organizer will be responsible for securing both session participants and a chair.

This is designed for sessions which could be described as a Discussion, Plenary or Birds of a Feather.

The submission should provide titles, author names, and a brief description for each of the individual presentations and email the details to the Program Committee (eddi22-prog@googlegroups.com).

Submission: abstract (300 words maximum).

Full Paper: The presentation will be approx. 20 minutes long, plus 10 minutes for questions at the end.

Accepted papers will be presented at the conference. They can be published in the journal IASSIST Quarterly.

At least one author of each paper is expected to register for the conference and to present the paper.

Submission: abstract (200 words maximum) - Further requirements: see section Author Guideline & Important dates below.

Regular Presentation: The presentation will be approx. 20 minutes long, plus 10 minutes for questions at the end.

Submission: abstract (200 words maximum).

Short Presentation: The presentations will be approx. 10 minutes long, plus 5 minutes for questions at the end.

Submission: abstract (200 words maximum)

Poster: An A1 poster

Submission: abstract (200 words maximum)

Posters are to be presented in-person

Tutorial or Workshop: Half-day or full-day tutorials (introductions) or workshops (more advanced special topics) with respectively 2 and 4 blocks each lasting 90 minutes in length.

These are scheduled to take place on Tuesday, November 29, 2022

The abstract should describe the topic, the perspective (business or technical), the intended audience and possible prerequisites.

Hands-on exercises could rely on the participants using laptop computers.

Submission: abstract (300 words maximum).

How to submit

=============

If you are interested in submitting a proposal, You will first have to create an account, at [https://eddi22.sciencesconf.org] or just log-in, if you already have one.

In the section "My submission" you can start the submission process.

The deadline for submissions is 4 September 2022, 23:59 CEST.

Please consider indicating your availability as a reviewer as well.
Please also indicate whether you will be presenting in-person or on-line.

Author Guidelines & Important dates

===================================

Deadline for Call for Papers / all proposals due: 4 September 2022, 23:59 CEST.

Notification of acceptance for all proposals: 28 September 2022.

For Full papers

A draft of the paper of 8-12 pages with appendices must be sent in addition to the Program Committee (eddi22-prog@googlegroups.com) for review by 15 September 2022
Reviewer comments will be sent to the authors by 17 October 2022.
Final version of full papers due: 11 November 2022.

Full papers must follow the rules of IASSIST Quarterly [https://iassistquarterly.com/index.php/iassist/about/submissions]. Submissions should use the IQ author template [https://drive.google.com/file/d/14yRUII3ma7e7TIQxjohNU786NUzzEhxU/view].

Please pay attention to the details in the template and submit your contribution in Microsoft Word document file format (or RTF or OpenOffice) and PDF format.

Accepted papers have to be submitted in Microsoft Word document file format (or RTF or OpenOffice) and PDF format.

General Information

===================

The Program Committee [https://www.eddi-conferences.eu/committees] strategically develops, creates and organizes the program.

The Organization Committee [https://www.eddi-conferences.eu/committees] coordinates the onsite work

For questions or any other correspondence regarding the Call for Papers of EDDI221, please send an email to eddi22-prog@googlegroups.com.

Last year's program is available at the EDDI website [https://www.eddi-conferences.eu/eddi-2021/].

More information about the EDDI conference series and details on the previous EDDI conferences can be found at https://www.eddi-conferences.eu/.