Content about data

The Earth sciences, like geology, oceanography, and astronomy, generate vast quantities of data. The vision of the EarthServer project is to offer researchers ‘big Earth data at your fingertips’, so that they can access and manipulate enormous data sets with just a few mouse clicks.

In a TED talk video, Altimeter industry analyst Susan Etlinger discusses the ethical implications of collecting big data, and gives her perspective on how to best analyze data that both extracts real insights and builds trust.

iSGTW recently followed up with Etlinger on her proposed framework and how she believes we should approach traditional analytics methodologies to ensure they account for the variations and complexities of big data.

With the world facing unprecedented environmental challenges, it’s time to establish the field of ‘environmental computing’, argues Matti Heikkurinen, a senior advisor at Germany's Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. 

Rainforest Connection uses simple devices created from discarded cellphones to listen out for illegal logging activities and provide rangers with real-time alerts. The organization was founded in 2012 by Topher White, who gave a talk about his work at TEDxCERN last month. White’s system has already helped stop illegal logging in Indonesia and further pilot projects are set to be launched soon in both Brazil and Cameroon.

The Research Data Alliance (RDA) is set to hold its Fourth Plenary Meeting in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, later this month. Hilary Hanahoe, the future coordinator of RDA Europe, tells iSGTW about the important work the organization has been carrying out in the run up to the event.

The Research Data Alliance (RDA) seeks to build the social and technical bridges that enable open sharing and reuse of data, so as to address the cross-border and cross-disciplinary challenges faced by researchers. This September, the RDA will be hosting its Fourth Plenary Meeting in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Ahead of the event, iSGTW speaks to Gary Berg-Cross, general secretary of the Spatial Ontology Community of Practice and a member of the US RDA advisory committee. Berg-Cross is also co-chair of the RDA working group on data foundation and terminology.

National archives play a vital role in safeguarding information and enabling access to it. However, the exact approaches taken to achieve these goals vary widely across Europe. As such, there is a critical need for an overarching methodology for archiving data that can become the gold standard throughout the continent. The E-ARK project was launched earlier this year to develop such a methodology. 

Discover Data Avenue, a service that makes transferring large amounts of data between distributed computing infrastructures simple.

iSGTW is attending the Research Data Alliance (RDA) Third Plenary Meeting in Dublin, Ireland. The RDA seeks to accelerate international data-driven innovation and discovery by facilitating research data sharing and exchange, use and reuse, standards harmonization, and discoverability.

iSGTW speaks to Milena Žic Fuchs ahead of her keynote talk at the Research Data Alliance Third Plenary Meeting in Dublin, Ireland, later this month. A prominent researcher in the field of cognitive linguistics, Fuchs has served as Minister of Science and Technology in her native Croatia and she recently chaired the Standing Committee for the Humanities of the European Science Foundation.

iSGTW speaks to Mark Parsons, who was recently appointed secretary general of the Research Data Alliance. This global organization celebrates its first anniversary next month and will be holding its third plenary meeting in Dublin, Ireland, from 26-28 March, 2014.

Parsons tells iSGTW why it is important for researchers to share their data and explains how the RDA is seeking to harness enthusiasm within the community to bring about a 'culture change' in the way researchers deal with data. He also argues that the greatest barriers to increased data sharing are often social, rather than technical.