20220510 Scientific Board Meeting Minutes

Owned by Hilde Orten (Unlicensed)
Last updated: May 14, 2022
4 min read

Scientific Board meeting minutes 2022-05-10

 Attendees

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

Apologies

Flavio

1)     Update from the Working Groups

TC:

Ingo suggested to attend a physical TC meeting under planning by the TC. The proposal was well received by Wendy and the SB. A budget request proposal related to the meeting will be revised in order to include Ingo’s participation at the meeting.

URN temporary Working Group:

Carsten reported from the work of the SB temporary working group on URN resolution. The group is currently working on alternatives for this. Carsten and Darren have been looking into examples from other URN resolution services, with the purpose of informing the work on the possible alternatives. High level goals of the work are related to the FAIR principles, and recommendations and policies will be further developed.

The TC has recently published new updates to the DDI Registry, that includes new support for DDI users in providing information for DDI URN resolution https://ddialliance.org/announcement/ddi-alliance-id-registry-updates-0 . This could be viewed as one option, as well as a starting point for further development work to build on.

A draft report from the temporary URN resolution group work is planned to be ready for discussion and approval by the SB at the physical meeting in Chur, scheduled to September 5th to 6th.

It was agreed to organize a virtual meeting of the Scientific Community around URN resolution in September, some when after the report from URN resolution group work has been signed off by the SB. A doodle regarding availability for a Scientific Community meeting will be sent out closer to the date.

2. Prepare agendas for the DDI Alliance Annual Meetings

https://ddialliance.org/announcement/2022-ddi-annual-meetings .

a)      Annual Meeting of Members (Virtual on June 1st)

The agenda to be prepared by the Executive Board. The Scientific Board contributed last year with a ten minutes report, see minutes from last year’s meeting for reference:

The question was raised regarding whether the Scientific Board should again report highlights from the activities of the SB and the WGs at the Annual Meeting of Members, given that many of the participants of the two meetings are expected to be the same people.

It was however argued that there is not a complete overlap of participation at the two Annual Meetings, and that it is useful for the Designated Member Representatives to learn about the annual SB and WGs activities.

It was agreed for Ingo and Hilde to report the following topics at the Annual Meeting of Members:

  • Annual activities of the SB and the WGs.

  • Scientific Board directions.

  • Meetings and collaboration initiatives organized by the SB, roles of different types of meetings.

b) Annual Meeting of the Scientific Community

The Annual Meeting of the Scientific Community will be organized as a hybrid meeting on June 7th, in connection with the IASSIST conference in Gothenburg. The agenda is to be prepared by the Scientific Board. See minutes from last year’s meeting for reference.

Topics for the Annual Meeting of the Scientific Community were discussed. As the SB now organizes different types of community meetings, where some are more topic and discussion oriented, Ingo and Hilde stressed the importance of reporting about annual activities at the Annual Meeting, while Jared, Darren and Wolfgang stressed the importance of having time for discussion and engagement from the participants at that meeting also.

To allow for more discussion time at the Annual Meeting of the Scientific Community it was agreed that the SB Working Group Contacts contact the WG(s) they are responsible for, to ask them to provide a short report about the annual activities of the WG, the relationship of the activities to the Scientific Work Plan, as well as any issues related to the work. A compiled report will be distributed to the community in advance of the Annual Meeting of the Scientific Community, and will form basis for Ingo and Hilde’s presentations at the Annual Meetings. The report can also serve as a background document for discussion at the Annual Meeting of the Scientific Community.

The following draft agenda for the Annual Meeting of the Scientific Community was agreed:

  1. Welcome (Ingo, 5 minutes).

  2. Scientific Workplan and progress made, SB and WG highlights (Ingo and Hilde 40 minutes)

  3. TC reporting (Wendy 15 minutes).

  4. Looking ahead (All participants – input for the further work)

3)      Evaluation of the budget requests for the FY23.

The Scientific Board evaluated the incoming budget Requests for the FY23 relating to the Scientific and Technical work of the DDI Alliance provided by Jared.

Five budget request proposals were received for evaluation, relating to physical meetings, training activities and infrastructure. In addition, the Scientific Board has added an own proposal for a physical meeting, as well as a Hackathon in order to reinitiate the DDI Developers Group.

Several of the incoming requests were carry overs from last year’s approvals. During the COVID-19 period the DDI Alliance has increased it’s budget reserves, as travels have been restricted or not possible.

The Scientific Board sees all the requests as valid and of similar priorities, and recommend the funding them all even if this necessitates using the savings from previous years. The Scientific Board sees this as a balanced proposal from different working groups and additional contributors, containing multiple areas to be covered.