Report from the CODATA General Assembly, Taipei, 27-31 October 2012

This is my first ever blogpost - so it's a momentous moment, for me at least.

I recently had the the opportunity to attend the  CODATA meeting in Taipei, where I presented on PREPARDE, the Geoscience Data Journal and more generally on some of the projects and initiatives which the scholarly publishing industry has been taking part in (see slides attached).

I was kindly invited to work with the  CODATA-ICSTI Task Group on Data Citation Standards and Practices for two days as a pre-meeting activity. (PREPARDE Project manager, Sarah Callaghan, is one of the Co-Chairs.) The Task Group is currently compiling a report being which focuses on the international good practices in data citation to be published next year. Incidentally, they're on the look-out for reviewers to help facilitate this process, so do get in touch with one of the Co-Chairs if you want to volunteer.

I also chaired a very interesting session on 'Best Practices and Future Directions in Data Sharing'. We had a preview of the new Creative Commons data licence, had an account of the 2011'Canadian Research Data Summit and heard a fascinating account of a discipline wholly new to me - Computer Supported Cooperative Work - which amongst other things studies cyber infrastructure development as a way of understanding dynamic, emergent human collaborations.

As usual at these sorts of events, I emerged both far better informed than before, as well as humbled by the expertise and achievements I witnessed around me. Personal highlights were an impromptu meeting with Mark Hahnel of Figshare, and the WDS members' Forum, where a number of members, including Kerstin Lehnert of IEDA, gave flash presentations of their work.

The general feeling seems to be that progress - towards the better management, curation, re-integration, linking, etc of research data - is being made, but there is still a long way to go. So any feedback you have on what's going well, or where your pain points are would be tremendously welcome. It's all about communities, collaboration and communication, after all.....