[RDA Admin]

Colleagues,
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Commission asked the Research Data Alliance to form a rapid response Working Group to facilitate global data sharing in this space. A group was convened in late March and membership has grown to just shy of 400 in a matter of days. Clearly there is a strong interest in supporting research in this space.
To date, the co-chairs have drafted a case statement outlining the key aims and remit of the group, decided on 5 sub-groups covering the main research areas, solicited disciplinary experts from each research area to act as Moderators to chair the drafting of guidelines, and created a template structure to ensure coherence in guidelines produced across the five sub-groups.
The RDA Secretariat is actively supporting the group to ease administration. A spreadsheet was constructed to allow early members to highlight their areas of expertise and desired roles. This has been used to allocate members across the sub-groups.
We realized after we created the sign-up sheet, that we did not protect the column with the Areas pick list. As a result, there were some people we assigned to groups, and some we did not. Those people who have been assigned to a group, should have received an e-mail message from that group.
Everyone who identified with one of the 5 Areas has been added to an associated sub-group in the RDA site (list of all groups).
People who selected Data Modeling have been added to one of the 5 Areas, with the goal of spreading that expertise around equally.
There were a number of other people who input other topics, and we did not assign you to a group. If you did not get an e-mail from one of the 5 sub-groups, or do not see yourself on a sub-group landing page, then please feel free to Join the sub-group of your choice.
We are hosting a 1-hour Webinar on Tuesday April 7th, 11:00 AM Universal Time (UTC).
This webinar will:
introduce the Working Group aims and co-chairs;
outline the case statement and five sub-groups
explain the planned working methods to draft guidelines
share templates for the guidelines so work can get started
allow WG members to share ideas and questions
The login details will be sent in a separate message early next week, and will also be posted in the Event tab on the COVID-19 WG landing page.
If you have a question you would like us to address during the Webinar, please send them to ***@***.***-foundation.org.
The Webinar will be recorded, and made available soon after the live session.
Thank-you, have a restful and safe weekend.
RDA COVID-19 Co-Chairs
Juan Bicarregui, Anne Cambon-Thomsen, Ingrid Dillo, Sarah Jones, Mark Leggott, Priyanka Pillai

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