The document provides an overview of the Research Data Alliance (RDA). It discusses how RDA was established in 2013 to facilitate data sharing and exchange. It outlines RDA's organizational structure, including its Council, Technical Advisory Group, and Working Groups. It also summarizes several initial RDA Working Groups focused on issues like PID information types, data type registries, and metadata standards. The document aims to grow RDA's community and accelerate momentum around its efforts to advance open scientific data practices and infrastructure.

1. Francine Berman
Research Data
Alliance
Professor John Wood
RDA Council co-chair
Secretary-General, Association of Commonweatlh Universities
Chair Research Information Network
Ex-Chair European Research Area Board
1

2. Francine Berman
RIDING THE WAVE
HOW EUROPE CAN GAIN FROM THE
RISING TIDE OF SCIENTIFIC DATA
A VISION FOR 2030
>

3. Francine Berman
iCORDI - The premier global forum charting,
demonstrating and driving convergence
between emerging global data
infrastructures

4. Francine Berman
RDA timeline: 2011 - 2013
RDA Steering Group established in August,
2012 (US, EU, AU representatives)
Summer 2012 – Winter 2013: BRDI,
EUDAT Conference, e-IRG Meeting, CNI
Meeting, ESIP Meeting, CENDI, etc.
all having RDA sessions
2011 - 2012
2012 - 2013
2011, 2012: informal
International meetings
Spring, 2012: Concept Paper –
Data Web Forum (US)
Pre- 2011 and 2011: Broad
spectrum of national
initiatives, international
projects, “bottom up” community
efforts world-wide
October 2012: Global
Data Meeting (RDA
Planning Meeting) in
Washington DC October, 2012: First RDA
Council members
announced at EUDAT: John
Wood (EU), Ross Wilkinson
(AU), Fran Berman (US)
RDA Launch and
first Plenary
March 18-
20, 2013
Gothenburg, Sw
eden

5. Francine Berman
Initializing RDA
Goal: Evolve RDA as an open community
organization with a focus on real impact
and inclusion
RDA Guiding Principles: RDA should
• Be open and transparent to the community
• Be community-driven, consensus-focused, voluntary, not-for-profit
• Include a balanced representation of stakeholders
• Facilitate harmonization across
standards, policies, technologies, tools, infrastructure

6. Francine Berman
Research Data Alliance: New Organization to
Accelerate Global Data Sharing and Exchange
• The Research Data Alliance (RDA) is a new organization
forming to facilitate specific, short-term efforts that
accelerate the sharing and exchange of research data
• Working groups will serve as accelerants to data sharing
practice and infrastructure. Work products / deliverables to
include
– Adopted standards
– Deployed infrastructure
– Adopted policy
– Implemented best practice, etc.

7. Francine Berman
Initializing RDA: Organizational Framework
RDA Strategy and Leadership: Council
Responsible for overarching mission, vision, sustainability of RDA
Technical
Leadership:
Technical Advisory
Group (TAG)
Responsible for
Technical Roadmap
Administrative
Leadership:
Secretariat
Responsible for
Administration and
Operations
Organizational Partners:
Organisational
Advisory Group (OAG)
Responsible for Process
Reference Document
RDAC (public funders)
Appropriate International R&D Agency Support
Plenary(Membership
Community Impact: Working Groups
Responsible for impactful, outcome-oriented efforts

8. Francine Berman
Initial Sponsors (RDAC)
• US:
– Research Data Alliance /
U.S. – funded by NSF, in-
kind support from NIST
• AU:
– Australian National Data
Service – funded by the
Australian Government
• EU:
– iCORDI – funded by the
European Commission
• Organizational Partners
– Discussions in Progress
– Organizational partners
expected to include
• Public sector R&D agencies
• Private sector companies
• Community organizations
– Working through “win-win”
partnership models
focused on financial or in-
kind support for RDA efforts

9. Francine Berman
Initializing RDA: Dramatis Personae
• Initial Council:
– John Wood, EU
– Ross Wilkinson, AU
– Fran Berman, US
• Steering Group
– Fran Berman, US
– Juan Bicarregui, UK
– Leif Laaksonen, EU
– Beth Plale, US
– Andrew Treloar, AU
– Ross Wilkinson, AU
– Peter Wittenburg, EU
– John Wood, EU
• Secretariat:
– Herman Stehouwers, EU
– Stefanie Kethers, AU
– Mark Parsons, US

10. Francine Berman
icordi and RDA (Europe) High Level
Strategy Group
• LERU – Norbet Lossau lossau@sub.uni.goettingen.de
• LIBER – Paul Ayris p.ayris@ucl.ac.uk
• Eiroforum – Jens Vigen jens.vigen@cern.ch
• Knowledge Exchange – Norman Wiseman
norman.wiseman@jisc.ac.uk
• ERF – Donatellal Castelli “donatella.castelli:isti.cnr.it”
• European Internet Foundation – Peter Linton peter.linton@bm.com
• Science Europe – Paul Boyle.
• Max Plank Society – Martin Vingron vingron@molgen.mpg.de
• Marja Makarow –Vice president Finnish Academy of Sciences
marja.makarow@aka.fi
•

11. Francine Berman
Creating Working Group Efforts
“Bottom-up” increase of interest  development
of a Interest Group Case Statement (some groups
forming via forum.rd-alliance.org)
Community feedback (via forum.rd-alliance.org)
and continued development of Case Statement;
submission to Council
RDA Working Group: 12-18 month out-come
oriented effort culminating in adoption and
implementation of its “Action Plan”
Post-completion continuation of action of Working
Group members and broader community,
continued promotion by RDA
Case
Statement
Council
Approval
Group
Culmination

12. Francine Berman
Case Statements: Articulation of Proposed
Effort and Community Impact
1. WG Charter: What will be done? What are the deliverables?
2. Value Proposition: Who will benefit and how, what will actually
be the tangible outputs (no more reports!!)?
3. Engagement with Existing Work in the Area: What else is
going on? What can we leverage?
4. Action Plan: Who will adopt / implement within the Working
Group? What are the plans for adoption / implementation of the
deliverables more broadly? Proof needed
4. Work Plan: How will the Working Group operate?
5. Initial Membership: Who will be involved? Who will lead?

13. Francine Berman
PID Information
Types
Tobias Weigel,Tim
DiLauro
rda-cwg-
pidinfotypes
PID Information
Types
Recognized as a
Working Group,
March 2013
UPC Code for Data
Jim Myers, Margret
Hedstrom, Chris
Paolini
rda-cwg-upc
UPC for Data
Final case
statement not yet
submitted
Data Type
Registries
Larry Lannom,
Daan Broeder
rda-cwg-
typeregistries
Type Registries
Recognized as a
Working Group,
March 2013
Metadata
Standards
Directory
Jane Greenberg,
Rebecca Koskela,
Keith Jeffery
rda-cwg-metadata Metadata WG
Recognized as an
Interest Group, 23
April 2013
Publishing Data
Yannis Ioannidis,
Jonathan Tedds
rda-cwg-linking no forum
Final case
statement not yet
submitted
Data Foundation
and Terminology
Gerhard Budin,
Peter Wittenburg,
Gary Berg-Cross
rda-cwg-
terminology
Data Foundation
and Terminology
Pending
independent
technical review
Practical Policy
Reagan Moore,
Rainer Stotzka
rda-cwg-policy Practical Policy
Pending
independent
technical review
Legal
Interoperability
Paul F. Uhlir,
Enrique Alonso
Garcia
rda-cwg-
legalinterop
no forum
established yet
Recognized as a
joint CODATA/RDA
Interest Group,
March 2013,
leading to future
Working Group(s)

14. Francine Berman
Defining Urban Data
Exchange for Science
Charlie Catlett,Walter
Stewart, Theresa Pardo
rda-cwg-urban
no forum established yet Final case statement not
yet submitted
The Engagement Group
Inna Kouper, Andrew
Maffei , Marcio Faerman
rda-cwg-engage
Communities and
Engagement
Recognized as an Interest
Group, March 2013
Marine Data
Harmonization
Helen Glaves no mail list
Marine Data
Management
Final case statement not
yet submitted
Repository Audit and
Certification
Ingrid Dillo rda-cwg-certrepos
Case Statement:
Certification of Digital
Repositories
Final case statement not
yet submitted
Preservation e-
Infrastructure
David Giaretta No mail list
Case Statement:
Preservation e-
Infrastructure Working
Group
Final case statement not
yet submitted
Data in Context Brigitte Jörg No mail list
Case Statement:
Contextual Metadata
Final case statement not
yet submitted
Community Capability
Model
Liz Lyon No mail list
Discussing Community
Capability Model
Final case statement
submitted, 30 April 2013
Big Data Analytics
Morris Riedel, Rahul
Ramachandran
rda-cwg-bda
No forum established yet Final case statement not
yet submitted
Agricultural Data
Interoperability
Devika Madalli, Johannes
Keizer
No mail list
CASE Statement
Agricultural Data
Interoperability
Final case statement not
yet submitted

15. Francine Berman

16. Francine Berman
Initial Agriculture Data Interest Group
• The Agricultural Data Interest Group is a domain oriented interest group to work
on all issues related to data important for the development of global agriculture.
The interest group aims to represent all stakeholders
producing, managing, aggregating, sharing and consuming data for agricultural
research and innovation. Efforts will be made to get an active representation of
the major international institutions, which work on agricultural research and
innovation. It will take stock of existing problems and experiences and will pave
the way for a number of domain specific working groups to make precise
proposals for solution in specific area. This interest group will help to promote
good practices in our research domain : data sharing policies, data management
plan, data interoperability.
• The Agricultural Data Interest Group has a specific interest in data
interoperability. This refers not only to exchange of data of the same type, but
also to data of a different types, which refers to the same object. In this context
the interest group is planning a first working group on "wheat data
interoperability" in close collaboration with the "Global Wheat Initiative".

17. Francine Berman
Initializing RDA: Web
and Communications
• Second iteration of rd-
alliance.org website
– Continuing to evolve / develop
community portal that includes
information, support for forums
and feedback, impacts and
news, etc.
• Increasing need for
professional-level
communications and
outreach
– Within RDA community
– To larger stakeholder
community

18. Francine Berman
Accelerating RDA Momentum
• Growing the RDA Community
– Increase membership through the rd-
alliance.org website and forums
– Create a pipeline of impact-oriented
deliverables through the development
and cultivation of RDA Working Groups
• Growing the RDA
Organization
– Develop a functional and
effective organizational
structure – potential CLG model
with charitable status
– Reach out to founding
Organizational Partners for
funding – expect continuing
public funding
– Engaging policy makers
• Growing RDA Leadership
– Populate the initial Council, Secretariat, Technical Advisory Group
– Work with initial active community members to take on greater roles and
responsibilities

19. Francine Berman
Current status
Next Council Meeting June 11-13th
• 2-4 New Council members nominated by funders (nominations
being assessed for balance but need self funding) – to approve
new WGs, legal and funding models
Workshop for policy makers – July 16th US Congress as part of
Transatlantic Partnership Network
European Users’ pre plenary meeting 10th September RZG Munich
2nd Plenary – 16-18th September 2013 Washington USAA
TAB, OAB membership elections before 2nd plenary
G8 + 5 report on RDA adopted at next Carnegie meeting

20. Francine Berman
European Commissioner Nellie Kroes
tomorrow
Smarter Data for Europe
How ‘Big Data’ can increase opportunities for the
economy, society and science
May 23 2013 Venue: British Residence, Brussels
The development of ‘Big Data’ applications and e-
infrastructure can stimulate a new wave of economic and
social progress – but it needs leadership from both public
and private sector. What are the opportunities, obstacles
and solutions to making public and private data work harder
for us all, in healthcare, energy and other domains?

21. Francine Berman
• Information:
rd-alliance.org
• Questions, comments:
enquiries@rd-alliance.org
• Registration and Forum:
forum.rd-alliance.org
Thank You