Building a Disciplinary, World-Wide Data Infrastructure

Sharing scientific data, with the objective of making it fully discoverable, accessible, assessable, intelligible, usable, and interoperable, requires work at the disciplinary level to define in particular how the data should be formatted and described. Each discipline has its own organization and history as a starting point, and this paper explores the way a range of disciplines, namely materials science, crystallography, astronomy, earth sciences, humanities and linguistics get organized at the international level to tackle this question. In each case, the disciplinary culture with respect to data sharing, science drivers, organization and lessons learnt are briefly described, as well as the elements of the specific data infrastructure which are or could be shared with others. Commonalities and differences are assessed. Common key elements for success are identified: data sharing should be science driven; defining the disciplinary part of the interdisciplinary standards is mandatory but challenging; sharing of applications should accompany data sharing. Incentives such as journal and funding agency requirements are also similar. For all, it also appears that social aspects are more challenging than technological ones. Governance is more diverse, and linked to the discipline organization. CODATA, the RDA and the WDS can facilitate the establishment of disciplinary interoperability frameworks. Being problem-driven is also a key factor of success for building bridges to enable interdisciplinary research.Comment: Proceedings of the session "Building a disciplinary, world-wide data infrastructure" of SciDataCon 2016, held in Denver, CO, USA, 12-14 September 2016, to be published in ICSU CODATA Data Science Journal in 201

Bibliometric Maps of BIM and BIM in Universities: A Comparative Analysis

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is increasingly important in the architecture and engineering fields, and especially in the field of sustainability through the study of energy. This study performs a bibliometric study analysis of BIM publications based on the Scopus database during the whole period from 2003 to 2018. The aim was to establish a comparison of bibliometric maps of the building information model and BIM in universities. The analyzed data included 4307 records produced by a total of 10,636 distinct authors from 314 institutions. Engineering and computer science were found to be the main scientific fields involved in BIM research. Architectural design are the central theme keywords, followed by information theory and construction industry. The final stage of the study focuses on the detection of clusters in which global research in this field is grouped. The main clusters found were those related to the BIM cycle, including construction management, documentation and analysis, architecture and design, construction/fabrication, and operation and maintenance (related to energy or sustainability). However, the clusters of the last phases such as demolition and renovation are not present, which indicates that this field suntil needs to be further developed and researched. With regard to the evolution of research, it has been observed how information technologies have been integrated over the entire spectrum of internet of things (IoT). A final key factor in the implementation of the BIM is its inclusion in the curriculum of technical careers related to areas of construction such as civil engineering or architecture

From Sensor to Observation Web with Environmental Enablers in the Future Internet

This paper outlines the grand challenges in global sustainability research and the objectives of the FP7 Future Internet PPP program within the Digital Agenda for Europe. Large user communities are generating significant amounts of valuable environmental observations at local and regional scales using the devices and services of the Future Internet. These communities’ environmental observations represent a wealth of information which is currently hardly used or used only in isolation and therefore in need of integration with other information sources. Indeed, this very integration will lead to a paradigm shift from a mere Sensor Web to an Observation Web with semantically enriched content emanating from sensors, environmental simulations and citizens. The paper also describes the research challenges to realize the Observation Web and the associated environmental enablers for the Future Internet. Such an environmental enabler could for instance be an electronic sensing device, a web-service application, or even a social networking group affording or facilitating the capability of the Future Internet applications to consume, produce, and use environmental observations in cross-domain applications. The term ?envirofied? Future Internet is coined to describe this overall target that forms a cornerstone of work in the Environmental Usage Area within the Future Internet PPP program. Relevant trends described in the paper are the usage of ubiquitous sensors (anywhere), the provision and generation of information by citizens, and the convergence of real and virtual realities to convey understanding of environmental observations. The paper addresses the technical challenges in the Environmental Usage Area and the need for designing multi-style service oriented architecture. Key topics are the mapping of requirements to capabilities, providing scalability and robustness with implementing context aware information retrieval. Another essential research topic is handling data fusion and model based computation, and the related propagation of information uncertainty. Approaches to security, standardization and harmonization, all essential for sustainable solutions, are summarized from the perspective of the Environmental Usage Area. The paper concludes with an overview of emerging, high impact applications in the environmental areas concerning land ecosystems (biodiversity), air quality (atmospheric conditions) and water ecosystems (marine asset management)

2011 Strategic roadmap for Australian research infrastructure

The 2011 Roadmap articulates the priority research infrastructure areas of a national scale (capability areas) to further develop Australia’s research capacity and improve innovation and research outcomes over the next five to ten years. The capability areas have been identified through considered analysis of input provided by stakeholders, in conjunction with specialist advice from Expert Working Groups   It is intended the Strategic Framework will provide a high-level policy framework, which will include principles to guide the development of policy advice and the design of programs related to the funding of research infrastructure by the Australian Government. Roadmapping has been identified in the Strategic Framework Discussion Paper as the most appropriate prioritisation mechanism for national, collaborative research infrastructure. The strategic identification of Capability areas through a consultative roadmapping process was also validated in the report of the 2010 NCRIS Evaluation. The 2011 Roadmap is primarily concerned with medium to large-scale research infrastructure. However, any landmark infrastructure (typically involving an investment in excess of $100 million over five years from the Australian Government) requirements identified in this process will be noted. NRIC has also developed a ‘Process to identify and prioritise Australian Government landmark research infrastructure investments’ which is currently under consideration by the government as part of broader deliberations relating to research infrastructure. NRIC will have strategic oversight of the development of the 2011 Roadmap as part of its overall policy view of research infrastructure

Citizen Science and Smart Cities

The report summarizes the presentations, discussions, and conclusions of the Citizen Science and Smart Cities Summit organised by the European Commission Joint Research Centre on 5-7th February 2014. In the context of the Summit, the label Citizen Science was used to include both citizen science projects, and others that are about user-generated content, not necessarily addressing a scientific process or issues. The evidence presented by 27 different projects shows the vitality and diversity of the field but also a number of critical points: • Citizen science project are more than collecting data: they are about raising awareness, building capacity, and strengthening communities. • Likewise, smart cities are not only about ICT, energy and transport infrastructures: Smart cities are about smart citizens, who participate in their city’s daily governance, are concerned about increasing the quality of life of their fellow-citizens, and about protecting their environment. Technology may facilitate, but is no solution per se. • Unfortunately to date there seems to be little synergy between citizen science and smart cities initiatives, and there is little interoperability and reusability of the data, apps, and services developed in each project. • It is difficult to compare the results among citizen science, and smart cities projects or translate from one context to another. • The ephemeral nature of much of the data, which disappear short after the end of the projects, means lack of reproducibility of results and longitudinal analysis of time series challenging, if not impossible. • There are also new challenges with respect to the analytical methods needed to integrate quantitative and qualitative data from heterogeneous sources that need further research. • Building and maintaining trust are key points of any citizen science or smart city project. There is a need to work with the community and not just for, or on, the community. It is critical not just to take (data, information, knowledge) but to give back something that is valued by the community itself. The development of citizen science associations in Europe and the US are important developments that may address some of the points above. There are also actions through which the European Commission Joint Research Centre can make an important contribution: • Map citizen science and smart cities projects, and generate a semantic network of concepts between the projects to facilitate search of related activities, and community building. • Provide a repository for citizen science and smart cities data (anonymised and aggregated), software, services, and applications so that they are maintained beyond the life of the projects they originate from, and made shareable and reusable. • Develop regional test beds for the analysis and integration of social and environmental data from heterogeneous sources, with a focus on quality of life and well-being. • Undertake comparative studies, and analyse issues related to scaling up to the European dimension. • Support citizen science and smart cities projects with the JRC knowledge on semantic interoperability, data models, and interoperability arrangements. • Partner with the European Citizen Science Association, and contribute to its interoperability activities. • Work towards making the JRC, and the European Commission, a champion of citizen participation in European science.JRC.H.6-Digital Earth and Reference Dat

Past, present and future of information and knowledge sharing in the construction industry: Towards semantic service-based e-construction

The paper reviews product data technology initiatives in the construction sector and provides a synthesis of related ICT industry needs. A comparison between (a) the data centric characteristics of Product Data Technology (PDT) and (b) ontology with a focus on semantics, is given, highlighting the pros and cons of each approach. The paper advocates the migration from data-centric application integration to ontology-based business process support, and proposes inter-enterprise collaboration architectures and frameworks based on semantic services, underpinned by ontology-based knowledge structures. The paper discusses the main reasons behind the low industry take up of product data technology, and proposes a preliminary roadmap for the wide industry diffusion of the proposed approach. In this respect, the paper stresses the value of adopting alliance-based modes of operation