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Harnessing the Power of Digital Harnessing the Power of Digital Data for Science and SocietyData for Science and Society

Chuck Romine (NIST), Co-chair

Interagency Working Group on Digital Data (IWGDD)

September 24, 2009

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Key Background to Where We Are Today*

* There are many reports that cover scientific data, and are precursors to the IWGDD effort.

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Key Characteristics of the Digital Data Landscape

• The products of science and the starting point for new research are increasingly digital and increasingly “born-digital”;

• Exploding volumes and rising demand for data use are driven by the rapid pace of digital technology innovations;

• All sectors of society are stakeholders in digital preservation and access; and

• A comprehensive framework for cooperation and coordination to manage the risks to preservation of digital data is missing.

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IWGDD Overview• CO-CHAIRS: Chris Greer (OSTP) and

Chuck Romine (NIST)• 22+ active participating agencies• CHARGE: To develop and promote the implementation of a strategic plan for the Federal government to cultivate an open interoperable framework to ensure reliable preservation and effective access to digital data for research, development, and education in science, technology, and engineering.

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Progress Timeline(not to scale)August: IWG Formed

October: New COS Meets

2007 – June 08: Subgroup work on Framework Components

Subgroup work on policies and Plans

Report Issued Jan 09

2008: Report Drafting and Review

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2006 2007 2008 2009

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IWGDD Report (January 2009)http://www.nitrd.gov/About/Harnessing_Power.aspx

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Our Vision

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We envision a digital scientific data universe in which data creation, collection, documentation, analysis, preservation, and dissemination can be appropriately, reliably, and readily managed.

This will enhance the return on our nation’s research and development investment by ensuring that digital data realize their full potential as catalysts for progress in our global information society.

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Strategy

• Create a comprehensive framework of transparent, evolvable, extensible policies and management and organizational structures that provide reliable, effective access to the full spectrum of public digital scientific data.

• This framework will be a driving force for American leadership in science and in the competitive global information society

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Report Recommendations

• Create an NSTC Subcommittee

• Appropriate departments and agencies lay foundations for agency digital scientific data policy

• Agency designation of a Senior Data Policy Official responsible for this policy

• Make the policy publicly available

• Agencies promote a data management planning process for projects that generate preservation data

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Activity Subgroups

• Agency Science Data Policies examine issues on development of publicly-available science data policy statements for all appropriate agencies and departments.  

• Data Management Plans examine issues in development of policies for the inclusion of data management plans in proposals and project plans.

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A Revolution in Science

Empowered by an array of new digital technologies, science in the 21st century will be conducted in a fully digital world. In this world, the power of digital information to catalyze progress is limited only by the power of the human mind. Data are not consumed by the ideas and innovations they spark but are an endless fuel for creativity. A few bits, well found, can drive a giant leap of creativity. The power of a data set is amplified by ingenuity through applications unimagined by the authors and distant from the original field.

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Ocean Example

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NOAA’s DART™ Tsunami Monitoring Buoys

As part of the U.S. National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (NTHMP), NOAA has developed and placed Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART™) stations in regions with a history of generating destructive tsunamis to ensure early detection of tsunamis and to acquire support real-time warnings. Currently DART™ stations are deployed and active in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans, the Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico.

The tsunami-related data archive has grown from 5 gigabytes to over 1,700 gigabytes of data with standards-compliant metadata available online supporting the modeling, mapping, and assessment activities required to minimize the effect of tsunami.

Source: http://nctr.pmel.noaa.gov/Dart/dart_home.html

NOAA’s DART™ Tsunami Monitoring Buoys

As part of the U.S. National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (NTHMP), NOAA has developed and placed Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART™) stations in regions with a history of generating destructive tsunamis to ensure early detection of tsunamis and to acquire support real-time warnings. Currently DART™ stations are deployed and active in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans, the Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico.

The tsunami-related data archive has grown from 5 gigabytes to over 1,700 gigabytes of data with standards-compliant metadata available online supporting the modeling, mapping, and assessment activities required to minimize the effect of tsunami.

Source: http://nctr.pmel.noaa.gov/Dart/dart_home.html

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Questions?