Toward Implementation of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems Data Sharing Principles

This White Paper reviews the background issues for implementing the GEOSS Data Sharing Principles and recommends Implementation Guidelines to ensure the strongest possible framework for data sharing, consistent with both the spirit and the “letter” of the Principles. As recognized by the 10-Year Implementation Plan, “ensuring that such information is available to those who need it is a function of governments and institutions at all levels.” It is therefore incumbent on governments and institutions participating in GEOSS to continue to develop and implement appropriate policies and procedures that enable and support the GEOSS Data Sharing Principles in fair and effective ways. The implementation approaches discussed here are intended to facilitate this process

Data Science as an Interdiscipline: Historical Parallels from Information Science

Considerable debate exists today on almost every facet of what data science entails. Almost all commentators agree, however, that data science must be characterized as having an interdisciplinary or metadisciplinary nature. There is interest from many stakeholders in formalizing the emerging discipline of data science by defining boundaries and core concepts for the field. This paper presents a comparison between the data science of today and the development and evolution of information science over the past century. Data science and information science present a number of similarities: diverse participants and institutions, contested disciplinary boundaries, and diffuse core concepts. This comparison is used to discuss three questions about data science going forward: (1) What will be the focal points around which data science and its stakeholders coalesce? (2) Can data science stakeholders use the lack of disciplinary clarity as a strength? (3) Can data science feed into an “empowering profession”? The historical comparison to information science suggests that the boundaries of data science will be a source of contestation and debate for the foreseeable future. Stakeholders face many questions as data science evolves with the inevitable societal and technological changes of the next few decades

Climate Observing During Canada’s Empires, 1742–1871: People, Places and Motivations

A wealth of pre-Confederation weather and climate observations were recorded in Canada by individuals and institutions during both the French and British empires. This scientific heritage came about for a number of reasons. For instance, the Hudson’s Bay Company wanted to reduce operating costs by having their posts in Canada’s north-west become self-sufficient in agriculture. Others wished to save lives from cholera or shipwrecks, or to satisfy curiosity about the ever-present debate concerning anthropogenic climate change. Today, historical climate observations can be found in many diverse locations. Despite our rich scientific heritage, turning archival paper and ink observations into scientific data remains an enormous technical challenge. This challenge falls to our generation, both to use this heritage to investigate the historical context of current climate change and variability, and to use the digital resources in development today to safeguard our scientific heritage for future generations

Designing a Metadata Scheme for the Documentation of Data Rescue Activities

Rescuing fragile scientific data is crucial to ensuring that this data can continue to be part of the scientific process. The complementary documentation of data rescue efforts is also essential for ongoing scientific study and future data rescue. This paper reports on a study that examined how best to document and describe data rescue activities. A mixed methods approach included a case study of 20 data rescue initiatives and a content analysis of seven descriptive metadata schemes. The results identified 13 metadata elements that were common across schemes and well suited to describing rescue projects. The findings were used to develop a core metadata scheme for the description of data rescue activities. The study was undertaken as part of the Data-at-Risk Initiative (DARI). Results of the study will help inform future DARI efforts and contribute to the knowledge base on data rescue and project-descriptive metadata.Master of Science in Library Scienc

Open Science: Challenges, Possible Solutions and the Way Forward

Everyone agrees that scientific communication should be free for all. Unfortunately, accessing publications from many reputed journals comes at a high cost—a cost that many researchers and institutions cannot afford. Although, open-access publication model is considered by many as a possible route to ensure that science is free for all; however, it is fraught with its own challenges. This review attempts at exploring the possibilities of keeping science accessible. Firstly, we re-visit the meaning of “open science” as a comprehensive concept which includes open source, data, access, resources, peer review etc. and not merely open access publication model. Next, we have discussed the global initiatives towards open access—the Budapest Open Access Initiative, Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing, Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, cOAlition S and its Plan S initiative, UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science and the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). Following this we have included the various open access initiatives from India. In the next part, we have focused on problems with dissemination of scientific outcomes and the challenges associated with existing publication models. Finally, we explore the possible solutions to the existing challenges, which include promotion of pre-print servers and other ideas that we have detailed in the manuscript. © 2022, Indian National Science Academy

Contributions of precision engineering to the revision of the SI

All measurements performed in science and industry are based on the International System of Units, the SI. It has been proposed to revise the SI following an approach which was implemented for the redefinition of the unit of length, the metre, namely to define the SI units by fixing the numerical values of so-called defining constants, including c, h, e, k and NA. We will discuss the reasoning behind the revision, which will likely be put into force in 2018. Precision engineering was crucial to achieve the required small measurement uncertainties and agreement of measurement results for the defining constants

Searching for Ground Truth: a stepping stone in automating genre classification

This paper examines genre classification of documents and its role in enabling the effective automated management of digital documents by digital libraries and other repositories. We have previously presented genre classification as a valuable step toward achieving automated extraction of descriptive metadata for digital material. Here, we present results from experiments using human labellers, conducted to assist in genre characterisation and the prediction of obstacles which need to be overcome by an automated system, and to contribute to the process of creating a solid testbed corpus for extending automated genre classification and testing metadata extraction tools across genres. We also describe the performance of two classifiers based on image and stylistic modeling features in labelling the data resulting from the agreement of three human labellers across fifteen genre classes.

An uncertainty budget for the precursor Watt balance for South Africa

The 26th General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) held on the 16th November 2018 has adopted the revision of the International system of units (SI) to be based on the fundamental physical constants

National environmental scan of South African scholarly publishing

Undertaken as part of the OpeningScholarship project at the University of Cape Town (UCT), this position paper reviews the national environment for the use of ICTs for research dissemination and publication in the South African higher education sector. Taking UCT as a case study, the paper reviews the use of ICTs for scholarly communications for research, teaching and learning, and community engagement in the university against the background of international developments and best practice

Computer-aided research in natural sciences

Diese Magisterarbeit beschäftigt sich mit den Möglichkeiten, die der Computer den Scientific Communities bietet. Schwerpunkte sind die Verbreitung von Wissen durch das Internet, Politik, Portale, Suchmaschinen und die digitale Rekonstruktion von Organismen.This master thesis concentrates on the possibilities for the scientific communities caused by the computer. Main topics are the propagation of knowledge by the Internet, politics, portals, search engines and digital reconstruction of organisms