20220308 Scientific Board Meeting Minutes

Owned by Hilde Orten (Unlicensed)
Mar 25, 2022
4 min read

Attendees 

Carsten, Darren, Flavio, Ingo, Jared, Hilde, Simon, Wendy 

1. Input from Working Group contacts  

  • Report from the WG contacts (All) 

    • Carsten reported from the XKOS group. XKOS guidelines will soon be ready for review. 

    • Hilde has met with the glossary group for the first time. Work is going well and the group plans to publish content on a regular basis. A question from the group came up regarding what the review process for content would be. 

    • Flavio reported from the work of the Training Group, and raised in that connection with that two issues of general concern related to structure and process of Working Groups (see the next agenda point). 

  • Structure and processes of Working Groups 

Flavio sent an email to the board members in advance of the meeting that raised two issues: 

-Independency of Working Groups sub-groups 

-Review process for ‘official’ DDI related material that are not specifications. 

 Both issues were discussed at the meeting. 

 Independency of Working Groups sub-groups: 

 The relationship of sub-groups to the full Working Groups was discussed. There was a general understanding within the Board that sub-group issues or proposals that requires a decision should be raised and agreed on the level of the larger Working Group.  

 However, a sub-group should have the right to raise any issues with the Scientific Board, for example via the Scientific Board contact assigned to the group.  

 Status: Follow-up work needed to provide guidance for the Working Groups. 

 Review process for ‘official’ DDI related material that are not specifications:

 What should be the review process for official material for publication created by the Working Groups? While the TC usually organize reviews for specification related material, should there be a review process also for other materials?  

A discussion followed, and Flavio suggested that materials, as for example official Training Materials, should undergo a review by the Scientific Board, to make sure that the content is in line with the goals specified in the Scientific Plan.  

Wendy informed that the TC has been working on a proposal for a review process for technical- and best practices documents delivered by the Working Groups. A draft has been sent to the Scientific Board for review, post meeting. 

Status: Needs further discussion and follow-up. To be addressed at the next SB meeting.

2. Feedback from the URN resolution Temporary Working Group  

  • TWG draft report and progress  

Carsten presented the work of the Temporary Working Group on URN resolution.  

  • Current proposal in the draft document of the WG vs. ongoing technical work by the TC, processes and the next steps  

The TC has been working on some tooling for URN resolution. For a presentation of the work, see DDI Agency Registry Upgrades . 

Questions were raised to which degree the tooling under development aligns with the proposed recommendations made in the document under development by the TWG, and what would be the next steps in the work of the TWG. 

Hilde suggested that the TWG continues it’s ongoing work as planned, and that the TC waits to publish their tool till the proposal of the TWG is final. Carsten and Wendy proposed on the other hand that the TC publishes their tooling as soon as it is ready. Carsten has been testing the tooling and will continue to do that with help from the TC.  

Ingo suggested that the TC provides a description of what the tooling can and cannot do. This information can be compared with the TWG’s recommendations regarding URN resolution, and further recommendations for realization of tooling could be based on feedback from users and the DDI Alliance regarding needs and who should provide what. 

 Status: Needs further follow-up  

3. Advisory members of the Scientific Board  

Ingo sent out a proposal regarding Advisory members for the Scientific Board in advance of the meeting (included in the Appendix).  

There was a discussion regarding which types of activities an Advisory member should take part in, which specific competence would be the most useful, and when would be the right time to start the recruitment of Advisory member(s) etc. 

While Ingo and Hilde proposed to start the process of recruiting Advisory member(s) now, Simon with support of Wendy suggested to wait to recruit Advisory members till more strategic and planning task are on the table for the board.  

Status: Needs follow-up work. To be continued at the next SB meeting. 

4. Replacement of Achim  

  • The nomination process for candidates to fill Achim’s position on the Scientific Board has been completed. Jared will initiate the election process for the new member. 

 

Appendix 

Proposal for agenda point 3 ‘Advisory members of the Scientific Board’, sent in advance by Ingo to the Scientific Board members:

  • advisory members should not be active or former personnel from DDI Alliance member organizations 

  • ideally, they should be from e.g. academia, other metadata or data standardization bodies or international organizations where a collaboration could be strategically useful from the perspective of the Alliance 

  • advisory members can be proposed internally from the members of the scientific board or externally from the community (e.g. scientific representatives after scientific community meetings) 

  • the number of advisory members is limited to two (as specified by the bylaws) 

  • the role of advisory member is a volunteer role, there is no financial compensation involved (exceptions might occur on a case by case basis - see travel costs for the Chur meeting) 

  • the advisory members are elected by the Scientific Board and have a term of two years 

  • advisory members can be re-elected after their term 

  • advisory members can step down at any time from the Scientific Board 

  • advisory members are non-voting members of the Scientific Board (as specified in the by-laws)