GO UNITE!

On 11 Fe­bru­ary 2021 around 60 par­ti­ci­pan­ts gathe­red for the stra­tegy mee­ting of GO UNI. Their cre­do: prag­ma­tic – con­cre­te – com­mu­ni­ty-dri­ven. Ba­sed on this cre­do GO UNI crea­tes a fo­rum un­der the um­brel­la of the GO FAIR Data Ste­ward­ship Com­pe­tence Cen­ters Im­ple­men­ta­ti­on Net­work (DSCC IN).

In this fo­rum Ger­ma­ny-ba­sed re­se­arch data ma­nage­ment (RDM) ex­perts with a spe­cial in­te­rest for net­wor­king with other RDM in­itia­ti­ves come tog­e­ther to col­la­bo­ra­tively work on to­pics of com­mon in­te­rest. Ta­king the feed­back of the mee­ting par­ti­ci­pan­ts into ac­count, this year GO UNI will be­gin with th­ree working to­pics in focus:

1. Con­nec­ting the net­work
In this sub­ject area re­le­vant RDM to­pics that re­qui­re stron­ger net­wor­king wi­thin the com­mu­ni­ty and bet­ween ac­ti­ve RDM in­itia­ti­ves will be iden­ti­fied. The aim is to avo­id the re­inven­ti­on of the wheel and par­al­lel work on iden­ti­cal to­pics. At the mo­ment this ap­pli­es, for ex­am­p­le, to the va­rious coll­ec­tions of tea­ching ma­te­ri­als as well as trai­ning pro­grams that are curr­ent­ly be­ing set up by dif­fe­rent RDM in­itia­ti­ves. Du­pli­ca­te work could be avo­ided if RDM in­itia­ti­ves, NFDI con­sor­tia, uni­ver­si­ties, etc. were to work on a cen­tral do­cu­ment with a com­mon me­ta­da­ta sche­me in or­der to ob­tain a com­ple­te over­view of all exis­ting ma­te­ri­al and pro­grams. Af­ter the GO UNI stra­tegy mee­ting, first steps have been ta­ken in this re­gard, espe­ci­al­ly in the con­text of the DINI / UAG trai­ning cour­ses, with which we have come into cont­act accordingly.

2. Con­ti­nua­tion of the to­pic of re­se­arch data ma­nage­ment de­scrip­ti­on mo­del (DIA­MOND / re­qui­re­ment ca­te­go­ries)
Wi­thin the Ger­man-spea­king field of re­se­arch data ma­nage­ment the­re seems to be a need for a com­pre­hen­si­ve de­scrip­ti­on mo­del of de­mands and work­flows. Ba­sed on two ap­proa­ches pre­sen­ted at the GO UNI stra­tegy mee­ting, (1) the DIA­MOND-Mo­del for RDM pro­ces­ses and work­flows and the de­ve­lo­p­ment of a (2) de­scrip­ti­on mo­del for RDM de­mands, this to­pic will be fur­ther dis­cus­sed and de­ve­lo­ped in the con­text of GO UNI. One of the first steps will be the eva­lua­ti­on of the DIA­MOND-Mo­del. Here, the lin­king of the pro­cess / work­flow and de­mand per­spec­ti­ves will be in­ves­ti­ga­ted. Curr­ent­ly, pos­si­bi­li­ties for hol­ding a work­shop on that to­pic in 2021 are be­ing discussed.

3. In­ter­na­tio­na­li­sa­ti­on
In ge­ne­ral, the work­shop par­ti­ci­pan­ts re­qui­re more in­ter­na­tio­na­li­sa­ti­on re­gar­ding RDM to­pics. In or­der to get in touch with the in­ter­na­tio­nal RDM com­mu­ni­ty, a stron­ger con­nec­tion to the GO FAIR DSCC IN is plan­ned. Mu­tu­al guest con­tri­bu­ti­ons from the na­tio­nal DSCC chap­ters are con­ceiva­ble for this pur­po­se. A coor­di­na­tor from the DSCC is to be in­vi­ted to the up­co­ming GO UNI mee­ting to re­port on cur­rent de­ve­lo­p­ments and ex­plo­re net­wor­king op­por­tu­ni­ties bet­ween the par­ti­ci­pa­ting countries.

The next GO UNI work­shop is plan­ned to be held in late sum­mer / ear­ly autumn 2021.

This text was writ­ten by Mo­ni­ka Lin­ne (Kons­ortSWD, GE­SIS), Pa­trick Hel­ling (DCH, Uni Köln), coor­di­na­tors of GO UNI, and Anja Busch (GO FAIR).