Editorial
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Dear GO FAIR community,
With the new year ahead of us we would like to hold still for a moment and take a look at our main achievements in 2020.
GO FAIR was conceived just over three years ago mainly as a ‘kick-start of EOSC’, and rapidly became much more global than initially anticipated. Last month, the first General Assembly of the EOSC association was held, and Suzanne Dumouchel, Vice Chair of the GO FAIR Executive Board and Klaus Tochtermann, Director of the German GO FAIR Office were elected in the Board of Directors. Congratulations to both!
Since its creation GO FAIR has gone way beyond the direct interests of the EOSC and Europe in general with offices in the US and Brazil and now plans underway in other regions, such as Africa or China.
Our GO FAIR community, composed at its heart of Implementation Networks (IN), has grown into an active and agile community solving challenges as they practically arise and sharing best practices to advance the Internet of FAIR Data and Services together. Our most recent event, the International FAIR Convergence Symposium 2020 co-organised with CODATA, attracted over 1100 participants from all over the world to discuss international and cross-domain convergence around FAIR. If you were not able to participate or would like to revisit some of the sessions, the recordings are now being made available in this Vimeo channel.
The joint statement of Data Together collaboration announced in 2020 is an important milestone towards FAIR convergence and cooperation of the CODATA, GO FAIR, RDA and WDS data communities in general.
Looking ahead, we will soon need to decide how to move forward in the new reality of an established EOSC, also taking into account that the initial GO FAIR project funding is coming to end. The GO FAIR Executive Board (EB) recently discussed this with its secretary, and the general feeling is that we need to find ways for GO FAIR to continue in the years to come to support the vibrant community of INs while safeguarding the way FAIR guiding principles are implemented. Further meetings are planned with the EB, representing the IN community, to commonly shape the vision of ‘GO FAIR 2.0’.
We are confident that we can collectively continue to build on the successful developments in GO FAIR and that we can consolidate the active INs into a continued bottom-up and community-driven approach towards an Internet of FAIR Data and Services.
All the best,
Laurent Crouzet, Barend Mons & Klaus Tochtermann
Strategic Directors, GO FAIR Initiative
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Did you know… GO Read
In this section you will learn about Implementation Networks that have recently acquired “active” status, recent IN activities and opportunities. This way, we ensure that you always stay on top of things happening in the “GO FAIR” family.
Outputs
- The GO FAIR US Office team has developed a new webinar series to introduce the FAIR Guidelines and activities in the US and beyond. Upcoming sessions will address FAIR technologies and models of implementation. Watch some previous recordings:
- Advancing FAIR- Connecting Stakeholders, Communities, and Resources (10 December 2020);
- GO FAIR US Launch and FAIR Basics (15 October 2020).
- Check out what the CO-OPERAS IN has been up to in their recent news item: CO-OPERAS advances conversation about FAIR in Social Sciences and Humanities.
- On 14 December 2020, EcoSoc IN members published the White Paper on implementing the FAIR principles for data in the Social, Behavioural, and Economic Sciences.
Opportunities
- Call for a new Implementation Network: On 11 December 2020 Jan Velterop and Erik Schultes, GO FAIR International Science Coordinator, published the article “An Academic Publishers’ GO FAIR Implementation Network”.
- Join the eighth International Open Science Conference from 17 to 19 February 2021. Prior to the conference on 16 February 2021, you can attend the Open Science Barcamp. Registration is mandatory for both events.
Interesting reads from the INs
- Check out these papers by Food Systems IN representatives:
- “Making experimental data tables in the life sciences more FAIR: a pragmatic approach” co-authored by Daniel Jacob, Romain David, and Sophie Aubin
- “39 Hints to Facilitate the Use of Semantics for Data on Agriculture and Nutrition” co-authored by Caterina Caracciolo, Sophie Aubin, Clement Jonquet, Romain David, and Catherine Roussey
- Read this manifesto from the Dagstuhl Perspectives Workshop on “Implementing FAIR data infrastructures” co-authored by Paolo Manghi, GO Inter member, and Peter Mutschke, coordinator of the GO Inter IN.
- The Personal Health Train was awarded the Dutch Computable Award 2020 in the category “Care project”.
GO Meet
This section gives you an overview of conferences and workshops where you can meet up (virtually) with fellow GO FAIR members if you happen to attend the same event or are in the same town.
In order for this category to work we do need your help! Please drop us a line at go-fair@zbw.eu and tell us where you can be met in the future.
External events
Meet GFISCO:
- 17-19 February 2021, virtual: Meet Anja, Katharina and Klaus at the Open Science Conference 2021.
INternal events
Meet INs:
- 11 February 2021, virtual: GO UNI strategy meeting (German chapter of the Data Stewardship Competence Centers IN)
Meet GFISCO:
- 14 January 2021, virtual: GO FAIR US Webinar Series: FAIR & Research Software Webinar
People of GO FAIR
In this section we would like to introduce you to members of our GO FAIR family. In each newsletter we will provide you with a short profile of two GO FAIR members.
IN representatives
Meet the IN Coordinators of the Data Stewardship Competence Centers IN: Diba Terese Markus, Valentina Pasquale and Angus Whyte.
![]() | Diba is a research data management consultant, since January 2020, with the CLAAUDIA Research Data Services, Aalborg University, Denmark – a cross-university support unit covering all aspects of research data handling: infrastructure, data management and data science. Prior to this, she worked with RDM at a national level, where she provided secretarial services to the national RDM forum, took part in the development and delivery of data management related services and facilitated the start up of a National RDA node. Diba holds a MA in Multimedia. |
![]() | Valentina works as Research Data Management Specialist in IIT, where she coordinates the set-up and development of Research Data Services to support scientists in data stewardship and open science. Since December 2019, she has been co-chair of the Data Stewardship Competence Centers Implementation Network (DSCC IN) in GO FAIR. Valentina has a background in Bioengineering and she holds a PhD in Humanoid Technologies from the University of Genova and IIT. She worked for more than 10 years in Neuroscience research before specializing in data management. |
![]() | Angus is a Senior Research Data Specialist with the Digital Curation Centre, since 2007, specialising in training, guidance materials and assessment frameworks for research data management. He currently co-leads the Policy and Practice WP in FAIRsFAIR, and contributes to FAIR Competence Centre development. He was a member of the EOSC WG Skills and Training and previously, in the EOSCpilot project, led development of a skills framework for FAIR (FAIR4S). Angus has a background in social informatics, and holds a PhD in Information Science, MSc in Information Management, and BSc in Computing. |
National office representatives
Meet the GO FAIR US office team: Alexandra Andreiu, Melissa Cragin, Christopher Erdmann, Nancy Hoebelheinrich, Christine Kirkpatrick, Juliane Schneider
![]() | Alexandra is the GO FAIR US Coordinator. Her background is in Cognitive Science with a specialization in Design and Interaction. She is currently working from Seattle, Washington. |
![]() | Melissa is Chief Strategist for Data Initiatives in the Research Data Services division at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), University of California, San Diego. At SDSC, she works on projects that aim to improve data access and use, and develop the national research infrastructure ecosystem. Melissa works on FAIR activities across multiple science communities in her roles with the GO FAIR US Coordination Office based at SDSC, the West Big Data Innovation Hub, and the EarthCube Coordination Office. |
![]() | Christopher is an author, developer, and experimenter in the areas of digital libraries, social networking, library UX, interactive technologies, bibliometrics, and data services in libraries. He is currently an engagement, support, and training expert on the NHLBI BioData Catalyst project at University of North Carolina Renaissance Computing Institute. He has previously worked for organizations such as California Digital Library (Library Carpentry), North Carolina State University, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, European Southern Observatory, Supreme Court of the US, United Nations, University of Washington, Smithsonian, and CNET. Chris holds an MLIS from the University of Washington iSchool and a BA from the University of California, Davis. |
![]() | Nancy is a digital library, archives and data repository consultant specializing in geospatial, cultural heritage, and educational resources. Nancy is currently founder and co-owner of Knowledge Motifs LLC. Nancy has been active in a number of information and educational technology efforts including those of the Earth Science Information Partner, the Research Data Alliance’s Education and Training on handling of research data Interest Group (ETHRD IG), and EarthCube. Nancy is Co-Investigator, Project Coordinator and Editor of the IMLS National Leadership Grant-funded Data Management Training Clearinghouse, and a member of the core GO FAIR US team. |
![]() | Christine oversees the San Diego Supercomputer Center’s (SDSC) Research Data Services division, which manages infrastructure, networking, and services for research projects of regional and national scope. Christine founded and hosts the US GO FAIR Office at SDSC, is Co-Executive Director of the West Big Data Innovation Hub, and PI of the EarthCube Office (ECO). She serves on the Technical Advisory Board (TAB) for the Research Data Alliance (RDA) and the National Academies of Sciences’ U.S. National Committee for the Committee on Data (CODATA). |
![]() | In a 20-year career specializing in metadata, ontologies and discovery, Juliane has worked in start-ups, on Wall Street in an insurance library, at NYU medical center, for EBSCO publishing, and at UC San Diego in the Research Data Curation Program. She has also worked for Harvard University as a Metadata Librarian at Harvard Medical School, and as a Team Lead/Data Curator for Harvard Catalyst | Clinical and Translational Science Center. She is currently Data Liaison/Project Coordinator for Sage Bionetworks, where she coordinates the data contributions from grants dealing with Alzheimer’s Disease and mental disorders. She is a certified Carpentries Instructor and has taught workshops on data management at libraries across North America and Ireland. |
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