EcoDM Stipendiat*innen berichten von der RDA DE Tagung zum Stand des digitalen Datenmanagements: Nina Mohammadianbisheh
Bericht von Nina Mohammadianbisheh, Universität Heidelberg
(Zwischenüberschriften, Hervorhebungen und Verlinkungen sind redaktionelle Überarbeitungen)
As I have recently started my career in research data management field, I was very eager to attend RDA Deutschland Tagung in order to get an overview about the topics, get to know the different researches and projects in the research data management field, especially at universities in Germany. I was looking forward to participating in discussions, get to know the experts who are active in the RDA, hear their ideas and see how it will go further.
Workshop Day – Newcomer Track
Fundamental Principles of Research Data Management lead by Jessica Rex
The conference started on February 25th at 9:30 a.m. with an introduction to fundamentals of the Research Data Management. After a short introducing round, there was a very well structured yet short presentation about Data Life Cycle, FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Re-usable) principles, Data Management Plan and Data Repositories. I find it very informative especially because it involved some practical exercises in small groups. It helped us the newcomers in the field of research data management find our way through the subject and get familiar to research data management framework in general.
The day continued with more presentations about Data Reusability and Data Research, through some exercises, we used some interdisciplinary repositories such as re3Data, to search for our topics and find out what data sets are already existing in this specific filed that could be useful for our further research.
Then we attended a very interesting presentation about Data Documentation, Metadata and emphasis on Research Data Planning and the importance of it in order to make the data produced, reusable and findable. We also had the possibilities to exercise it in a small group and produce a read-me file for our example project. I find such small hands on exercises made the session very practical. Besides, during the day there was a short overview about Data publications, Open Data and an introduction about the legal framework and references to take into considerations, while making open data possible to be published.
Keynotes and State Initiatives Presentations
The second day after opening of the Conference Session, there was a very interesting presentation about Data management of the MOSAiC (The Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate) expedition, which is defined by the MOSAiC data policy based on the FAIR data principles.
Then the nine state initiatives presented their activities and their projects in the research data management. It opened a new insight to see how each state in Germany took actions in order to build a competent base to achieve their goals and help to make research at universities more sustainable, reusable and connected for scientists.
After listening to the presentations, I noticed beside some common points and services the universities provide, such as Workshops and learning Materials there was a distinguish difference between services and project spectrum in the states in very different ways such as technical, structural, human resources and availability of budget.
In my opinion, there is a potential to build cooperation possibilities in order to increase productivity, use more effectively the rare human resources and benefit from technical resources and available knowledge.
FAIR Data Initiatives
The third and last day was sponsored by EcoDM (Ökosystem Datenmanagement) and filled with different aspects and projects. The RDA FAIR Data Maturity Working Group presented their impressive work. It was about developing a common set of core assessment criteria for FAIRness. They aim for a generic assessment model, which can be used to measure the maturity level of a dataset. It is obviously aimed to bring scientists in different research disciplines together to increase the inter-operability of FAIR assessment framework.
There was also a very fascinating presentation about what FAIRsFAIR do according to EOSC (European Open Science Cloud) goals. They constantly try to increase knowledge by supporting open access to the data. Their aim is to ensure research resources such as data, software and services maintain FAIR.
To conclude, it is very beneficial and important that through workshops and conferences, awareness about FAIR data principles is promoted and there is a tendency to increase. This, for sure can positively influence the creation of FAIR data Plans at the beginning phase of every research. It is also clear that each FAIR component namely Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable is not always achievable at a same degree and can vary according to the field of research.
Impression
I found the RDA Tagung 2020 in general a very informative and pleasant experience. I have learned a lot from attending the sessions and received a very accurate and organized input from the experts in the field. I got the chance to talk to people about their interesting work, get an overview about new topics of studies mainly which were presented at the poster session. The breaks between sessions was also a very good opportunity to communicate with people and experts and exchange ideas.
