What is inside your RI’s data? Hopefully, you know – but how easy is it for your end-users to find out? To make good scientific use of data, it is necessary to be absolutely clear on what has been measured or calculated. Just labelling table columns with “SWC_1_1” or “P_sal” is in many cases not precise enough, even for people familiar with your subdomain.

The RDA I-ADOPT framework offers a way to compile clear and unambiguous definitions of variables in a standardised way. It helps you to describe concepts at different levels, ranging from overarching classes (“soil composition”) down to the very detailed (“soil water content, measured in a mineral soil matrix below root depth”). You can create and register your own definitions, or reuse those of others, and once in place use them to tag your RI’s datasets.
The formalized descriptions empower FAIR in many ways, for example by facilitating searches across data portals (F+A) and enabling machine-driven interpretation and use of data and metadata (I+R).

To learn more about the I-ADOPT framework and how your RI can benefit, please join the upcoming ENVRI-FAIR WP6 training events.

The topic of the training

The aim of the I-ADOPT initiative is to produce an Interoperability Framework, co-developed by a wide community of terminology experts, for representing observable properties. This effort will have a strong focus on observable properties in environmental research because it leverages existing efforts to accurately encode what was measured, observed, derived, or computed in relation to the earth systems.
The framework has been developed by an RDA working group, dedicated to this topic.
The aim is to create FAIRer observable property terminologies, the global effectiveness of tools operating upon them will be improved and their impact increased. This will thus strengthen existing collaborations and build new connections between terminology developers and providers, disciplinary experts from across the various domains of Earth and Environmental Science, and representatives of scientific data user groups.

Training goals

The aim of this training is to introduce the ENVRI(FAIR) community to the concept of I-Adopt, offer opportunities to experiment with real live examples from daily practice and to discuss issues related to these experiments and receive advice on the approach. After completing this training, participants have a basic understanding of the I-Adopt framework, can assess its usefulness in their RI’s and if interested, participate actively in the I-ADOPT discussions under github or in the I-ADOPT Task Group under the auspices of the RDA VSSIG (Vocabulary Services Interest Group), the follow-up group to gain further knowledge and contribute to the maturing of the concept. The training can be extended with more in-depth sessions to be organized at a later stage.

Training Programme and approach

The training will consist of three, possibly four components:

1. A first virtual introductory course where the concept will be explained and examples will be demonstrated. During this event, participants will also do exercises to try out the concept and discuss the first outcomes. Duration is 3 hours: A mix of plenary lectures, breakout sessions with exercises and plenary feedback;
2. In between the first and the second event, participants can experiment themselves with the I-ADOPT framework to test it on their own variables. Guidelines and Google sheets are provided to do these experiments;
3. A second event is again a virtual event of 3 hours. Issues related to the variable modelling will be discussed, problems solved and advice given during the first 2 hours. The last hour will be used to discuss I-ADOPT in a bigger context. How should this be embedded in the daily practice of research and Research Infrastructures, how can it build bridges between disciplines, what services are needed to facilitate the I-ADOPT approach, how does it relate to other areas like sensor measurements, provenance, how it can enrich the catalogues of description patterns.
4. As follow up, WP6 will engage with the subdomain WP’s to check if specific subdomain sessions are useful.

Target Audience

This training is useful for all data managers in RI’s that work on vocabularies/semantics or want to have a more in-depth knowledge of this topic. It is also suitable for researchers working with observation data to better define their data analysis needs towards RI’s for instance.

Dates

Event 1 will be held on Thursday, March 17, 14.00h – 17.30h CET, through Zoom
Event 2 will be held on Thursday, March 31, 14.00h – 17.30h CET, through Zoom

For specific subdomain events, we will contact WP 8-11.

The main trainer for both events will be Barbara Magagna (Umweltbundesambt, eLTER), assisted by Gwen Moncoiffé (British Oceanographic Data Center) and Lucia Vaira (LifeWatch ERIC).

Registration

Click here to register for the events.