WG/IG Collaboration Meeting 6 Dec 12-13, NIST, Gaithersburg 'Assembling the Pieces: Connecting Outputs with Each Other and with Domain Adoption‘

e-Research Infrastructures: A Focus for RDA?- Keith G Jeffery Capitalized the “A” before Focus

RDA Principle / Ethos Let 100 flowers blossom (Mao Zedong 1957) (usually misquoted as let 1000 flowers bloom!) Great for groups generating ideas Is it good for products … and products we wish to be ‘joined-up? … and adopted within and across domains?

Already Moving Away from the Principle Top-down views Data Fabric Some clustering TAB graphic diagrams clustering groups (Beth Plale) Grouping of ‘flowers’ into ‘bouquets’ Repositories groups Metadata groups …….. Should we do this more consistently? And if so on what basis?

e-Research Infrastructures Although individual researchers still exist Much research is done in teams using e-RIs Across all disciplines

e-Research Infrastructures Although individual researchers still exist Much research is done in teams using e-RIs Across all disciplines Do the e-RI communities Provide the requirements?

e-Research Infrastructures Assets from research using e-RIs commonly made available openly for re-use with curation and provenance e-RIs increasingly connecting together (by domain) e.g. environment, social science, humanities, materials science Exactly in line with RDA objectives of making data available within and across domains

e-RI Dimensions Topology: centralised (CERN) vs distributed (EPOS) Domains: particle physics to arts & humanities Utilisation of e-Is (grid and cloud computing, supercomputing, network, detectors) Which condition the requirements of the communities

e-RIs: Requirements for RDA activities/products? Example for discussion 1. Common requirements across all e-RIs (and hence their users) Support for interoperation Support for provenance and curation Support for workflow construction (even simple query) Support for deployment to e-Is Support for citation 2. Requirements of specific (groups of?) e-RIs Support for instrumentation/detector control and data stream validation Support for particular analytics / simulation / visualisation

Matrix of Requirements by Domains Particle Physics Arts & Humanities Support for interoperation Support for workflow construction (even simple query) Support for deployment to e-Is Support for provenance and curation Support for citation Support for instrumentation/detector control and data stream validation Support for particular analytics / simulation / visualisation

Matrix of Requirements by Domains Particle Physics Arts & Humanities Support for interoperation Support for workflow construction (even simple query) Support for deployment to e-Is Support for provenance and curation Support for citation Support for instrumentation/detector control and data stream validation Support for particular analytics / simulation / visualisation which domains require which products

Let us just unpack one of these as an example: Provenance Need to understand the relationship between datasets In temporal dimension Versions In intent dimension Purpose (why a derived dataset?) In process dimension Commands/script (reflecting intent?) Software involved Operating environment involved Note relationship to curation Involves: PIDs Metadata Repositories Data fabric/workflow Data fabric/deployment (and more)

Leads to: Weighted by domain priorities Weighted by ‘size’ of domain Noting particularly groups that are represented maximally in both requirement for product and domains Which RDA groups are concerned with : Common requirements across all e-RIs Support for interoperation Support for workflow construction (even simple query) Support for deployment to e-Is Support for provenance and curation Support for citation Requirements of specific or groups of e-RIs Support for instrumentation/detector control and data stream validation Support for particular analytics / simulation / visualisation

Cluster RDA Groups Base on the requirements /domains matrix Reduces management and coordination load Encourages joint thinking and concentration of expertise Provides centres of excellence related to: e-RIs (especially those with shared concerns working together) Domains A stronger basis for products that are (a) joined-up; (b) adopted by the communities

Move progressively to… IG for each cluster Long-lived, strategic, steering, foresight WGs ‘spun out’ for specific pieces of work of short (18 month-24 month) duration yielding products Of general (all domains) use Specific to particular domains Some WGs could be ‘owned’ by >1 IG

This suggestion should produce: Prioritised products Developed by WGs Supported longer-term by IGs Developers in new rôle Based on strength of requirements from communities Encourages adoption A transparent and reproducible decision-making process More concentration of expertise Joined-up solutions Best solutions/products Sustainability

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