Standards: a key tool for DDE

DDE's ambition is to make better use of data from the earth sciences to produce new knowledge using new digital tools such as AI. The earth sciences have always relied on observations to produce knowledge. Scientists have always had a duty to ensure the quality of their data and to enable it to be reused by other researchers, by describing it as precisely as possible.

In the DDE approach, which makes use of vast quantities of digital data from a variety of sources, it is particularly important to be able to ensure the quality and relevance of the data used, in order to have confidence in the results produced by this approach. These data may have been produced by the scientific community on different continents, at different times, often for specific purposes.

When data is made available to researchers on platforms, it must comply with the FAIR (Findable - Accessible - Reusable - Interoperable) principles. For these principles to be implemented, the international community needs to agree on common terminologies and ontologies produced by the scientists themselves. This approach will provide machines with the reference systems needed for the reasoning used in AI.

As part of DDE, a Task Group on Standards (DDE/STG) has been set up to adopt common standards and a common approach to producing and updating these standards. This task group draws on the expertise of the Commission for the Management and Application of Geoscience Information (IUGS/CGI) and the Committee on Data of the International Science Council (CODATA). This presentation will provide an update on this work.