Cross-Domain Interoperability and Deeptime Digital Earth Data

This presentation, as part of a DDE-convened Union Symposium at EGU, will discuss avenues to pursue to enable greater Interoperability and Reusability of Deeptime Digital Earth Data, particularly in cross-domain research scenarios.

CODATA is the Committee on Data of the International Science Council (ISC).  Consequently, an important part of its mission is to engage with International Scientific Unions and related initiatives, on data issues.  The ISC has entrusted CODATA to develop a programme of activity: ‘Making Data Work for Cross-Domain Grand Challenges’.  After some exploratory work, the flagship activity is the WorldFAIR project which focuses on the implementation of the FAIR principles both within and across 11 different domain and cross-domain case studies.  Other related work includes the recommendations on FAIR vocabularies, with the International Union for the Scientific Study of Populations (report https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7818157), and in relation to the ISC-UNDRR Hazard Implementation Profiles.  Similarly, CODATA is working with a number of International Scientific Unions, notably IUPAC, around the Task Group on Digital Representation of Units of Measure.

The common threads of this work are both to encourage the adoption and implementation of the FAIR principles, and to explore the requirements for better enabling cross-domain research.  Such work is of paramount importance: the major global scientific and human challenges of the 21st century (including climate mitigation and adaptation, disaster risk reduction, the interplay of society, the economy and energy policy) can only be addressed through cross-domain research that seeks to understand complex systems through machine-assisted analysis at scale.  Our capacity for such analysis is currently constrained by the limitations in our ability to access and combine heterogenous data within and across domains.

CODATA has recently concluded a Memorandum of Understanding with the Deeptime Digital Earth initiative.  This agreement indicates a number of shared interests.  Particularly important is collaboration among DDE, IUGS CGI (Commission for Geosciences Information), and the wider CODATA and FAIR communities on the further development and representation of key terminologies.  Additionally, through a case study approach, DDE, IUGS CGI, CODATA and other partners plan to explore the applicability of the WorldFAIR methodology and the use of FAIR Implementation Profiles to understand FAIR requirements, progress and alignment.  Finally, the applicability of the emergent Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework (CDIF) will be explored, and further refinements and recommendations made. 

This presentation will describe the context for this collaboration and outline the specific activities.  It will be an important opportunity to socialise the community to this initiative, to get feedback and advice on the approach and to invite collaboration and expert input from the wider EGU community.