Data Versioning WG: Final Recommendations and next steps

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24 Jun 2019
Group(s) submitting the application: 
Meeting objectives: 

Presenting the document of the Data Versioning Working Group, and considering the next steps, potential use cases, and need for a  maintenance group.

Meeting agenda: 

Collaborative session noteshttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1BrV1OHNXm4aW-5tKwfXXeVFeQDRp0rJ938AYTrc6Z48/edit?usp=sharing 

 

  • Presentation of the Data Versioning WG report and recommendations

  • Use case presentations

  • Discussion on the next steps - do we need more use cases? Apply for “maintenance mode” or not?  Should this work be continued with another WG?

Target Audience: 

Data curators, Data facility managers / data policy managers. They should read the prepared document and consider how it matches their own needs.

 

Group chair serving as contact person: 
Brief introduction describing the activities and scope of the group: 

The group has worked on the principles of data versioning practices. The group is identifying the kinds of methods that have been adopted (or became ad hoc practices) and is generating the background theoretical framework needed for versioning considerations. The group seeks to answer the questions, “What is a new version?” and “How should it be documented?”, etc.

The group has prepared a report, based on documented use cases, and developed a set of basic considerations for data versioning:

  • Management: Recognise identification and tracking of data revisions and data releases as an important component of data management

    • Establish a procedure and policy for consistent management of data revisions and releases.

  • Identification: Be clear about which dataset is to be identified

    • Identify data revisions, consider issuing a new persistent identifier per revision and release

  • Communication: Communicate the significance of the change to the designated user community of this dataset.

    • Concepts such as Semantic Versioning describe the significance of a version change

  • Provenance: Track changes and record provenance information between revisions

    • Provenance information describes the changes that have been made to each newer revision. Display provenance information, attribution and credit on landing pages of each publically released dataset.

  • Citation: Cite a specific data release

    • For each released dataset, have a clear recommendation, including a release number, on how to cite a dataset.

Short Group Status: 

P8 Denver (Sept 2016): BoF on Data Versioning

P9 Barcelona (April 2017): Constituting the Data Versioning IG

P10 Montreal (Sept 2017): Data Versioning IG

P11 Berlin (March 2018): Data Versioning WG first meeting

P12 Gaborone (Nov 2018): Data Versioning WG working meeting

P13 Philadelphia (April 2019): Data Versioning WG draft report and recommendations

P14 Helsinki (Sept 2019): Data Versioning WG final report and recommendations, TAB adoption.

 

Type of Meeting: 
Working meeting
Avoid conflict with the following group (1): 
Avoid conflict with the following group (2):