20230411 Scientific Board Meeting Minutes

Owned by Hilde Orten
Last updated: May 07, 2023
3 min read

Attendees

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

1. Admin

a) Hackathon

Ingo reported that the Gothenburg hackathon was an absolute success.

14 people attended and 4 different projects were worked on: 

  • DDI to PDF based on Codebook 2.5 and adapted for integration with Dataverse,

  • GraphQL implementation for Codebook, 

  • Codebook to CDI with a prototype,

  • A French group was working remotely on DDI Lifecycle XML beans using Java classes. 

Based on the success story of the hackathon, Ingo, along with Johan Fihn Marberg from SND and Oliver Hopt from Gesis has sent an application to the Scientific Board to start a DDI Developers Working Group (see point 2 below). 

The group is also planning a hackathon Cologne in May 2024.

Ingo will liaise with Wendy and Jared regarding how to make the results from the Gothenburg hackathon available from the DDI website.

b) Scientific Community meeting March 28th – ideas for further community engagement

On March 28th the Scientific Board organised a virtual Scientific Community meeting in order to report about the updates to the Scientific Work Plan for 2023, and to collect input from participants on the next two year plan running from 2024.

At the Scientific Community meeting we received some useful feedback from the audience. At the Scientific Board meeting we discussed ways to collect community feedback. Ideas mentioned were:

  • Prepare well for discussion and announce good time in advance of a meeting.

  • Prepare a page where people can put in contributions before a meeting, during a meeting or after.

  • Roundtable feedback at a meeting, ask all participants for thoughts or recommendations.

  • Small breakout groups during a meeting.

  • Online discussion forum would allow to capture thoughts and feedback in a relaxed environment.

  • Use the meetings as a kick off to a topic for further discussion.

2. DDI Developers group

Ingo, along with Johan Fihn Marberg from SND and Oliver Hopt from Gesis submitted an application to start a DDI Developers Working Group to the Scientific Board for approval – (see application proposal at the bottom of these notes)

The application was approved unanimously by all voting members.

Wendy has set up a basic page in Confluence for the Developers Group and Jared will set up web pages as needed on the DDI Alliance website.

3. Annual Meeting of the Scientific Community 

The Annual Meeting of the Scientific Community and the Annual Meeting of Members will take place in Philadelphia on May 30th. The meetings will be hybrid and there will be 2 hours available for each of the meetings.

The purposes of the Annual Meeting of the Scientific Community are to: 

  • Provide a forum for Member Organization discussion and feedback. 

  • Review and approve the activities of the Scientific Board in the preceding year. 

  • Review and approve the Scientific Work Plan for the coming year.

Ideas for the meeting agenda were discussed at the Scientific Board meeting. Hilde and Darren will meet on Friday April 21st and will prepare a draft of the agenda for discussion at the Scientific Board meeting on Monday April 24th. 

4. Scientific Work Plan 2024 – 2025

The Scientific Work Plan shall have its foundation in the Strategic Plan of the DDI Alliance Executive Board.

Hilde has emailed Bill to ask whether a Strategic Plan update will be available in the near future that can inform SB’s work on the next Scientific Work Plan. An EB/SB chair’s meeting that will take place on Monday April 17th may provide clarity to this.

5. Evaluation of incoming funding requests

The Scientific Board will evaluate incoming funding requests for scientific and technical work and will provide the Executive Board with recommendations by April 26th. 

6. Scientific Board meeting in Bergen

The Scientific Board is planning a two day work meeting in Bergen in the autumn. Possible dates agreed for now are 9th to 10th or alternatively 17th to 18th October. Hilde will check availability of rooms with Sikt.

7. AOB

The Scientific Board will meet on Monday April 24th to provide recommendations for the Executive Board regarding the incoming funding requests related to the scientific and technical work of the Alliance, and prepare the agenda for the Annual meeting of the Scientific Community to take place in Philadelphia on May 30th.

Incoming proposal (for point 2 - approved 2023-04-11) 

Dear SB Members

Following the very successful hackathon in Gothenburg we would like to apply for the status as an official DDI Alliance Working Group called DDI Developers Group.

Co-Chairs: Ingo Barkow (FHGR), Johan Fihn Marberg (SND), Oliver Hopt (GESIS)

Members:

  • Markus Tuominen (FSD)

  • Neeraj Kashyap (Inclen Trust)

  • Thomas Gilders (UKDA)

  • Adrian Dusa (RODA)

  • Victoria Lubitch (University of Toronto)

  • Nicolas Senave (INSEE)

  • Ophelie Bibonne (INSEE)

  • Fabrice Bibonne (INSEE)

  • Olof Olsson (SND)

Potential Members (awaiting confirmation from their employer)

  • Guillaume Lefebvre (FORS)

  • Matteo Egloff (FORS)

Plus we have the interest of another 5-7 potential members in the meantime. It seems we will create a larger group.

Thanks for considering our application.

Best

Ingo