Data Rescue IG

14 August 2019 - A new IG is carrying forward the work of the Data Rescue IG with an expanded scope (all data, digital and analog), and with refined topics (questions in support of conservation processes, decision-making, and workflows).  All interested are welcome to join that conversation at the Data Conservation IG.

Sincere thanks to *Data Rescue IG Emeritus Chair Dr. Elizabeth Griffin* for her tireless efforts in support of international data rescue work.

The natural sciences possess a rich heritage of data spanning the entire era of research, encompassing both modern electronic formats and analogue ones (paper, film, books, pro-formas, charts, maps, photographic plates) or primitive magnetic tapes. The information in older data is critical for quantifying changes and trends and differentiating between natural or anthropogenic-induced changes. Unfortunately, most historical data have not been converted into electronic datasets. Those data cannot be accessed by present-day research - to the serious detriment of models that predict future changes. Even those that have been 'digitized' (whether catalogues of measurements or the actual observations) are rarely in interoperable, even easily readable, formats. Though essential to research for their unique time-stamp, heritage data are often in deteriorating state, abandoned, or effectively lost (if not actually destroyed). Their profile is unacceptably low; even the RDA does not have an organized effort focussing on this crucial topic.

Since 2010, CODATA has hosted a Task Group for "Data At Risk" (DAR-TG). DAR-TG led an enthusiastic Plenary #3 BoF session, and we are now proposing a new RDA IG for "Data Rescue" with affiliation to DAR-TG. DAR-TG's own international membership will set the IG at once on an international footing, and its history will endow the young IG with ready-made experience and contacts. The joint organization will benefit considerably from the broader exposure which the RDA will offer, such that the sum of the two will unquestionably be greater than the sum of separate entities working in parallel (even in competition). Both DAR-TG and CODATA itself are very happy with this proposed development.

The objectives of the new IG will be (a) to ferret out and catalogue known data-rescue efforts as exemplars of what can be achieved, and thereby raising the profile of Data Rescue in the world at large, (b) to establish an advisory system for 'digitizing' and associated tasks, and (c) to communicate with relevant RDA IGs (Education, Metadata, History & Ethnography, Long Tail of Data, and the domain-specific standard-setters). It will also consider extending its remit to 'adding value' to older digital data. It will provide a unique forum for sharing experience, expertise and ideas. Its overarching goal will be to convince scientists and policy makers of the immense value of implementing data rescue, and by enabling interoperability, access and (thence) wide application, to grow the activity into an essential and routine element of all research.

The Data Rescue IG will be particularly valuable for science researchers who require data from the past, and (by sharing best practice, hardware and software) for archivists and others with responsibilities to oversee the preservation of historical information in the humanities and social sciences. Case studies tabulated by the DAR-TG to date range from modest individual or small-group attempts to extend a domain-specific research data-base backwards in time in order to study natural evolution, to transnational organizations that align and open access to broad categories such as rocks, fossils or the ocean's characteristics, for the benefit of all academic research; some (such as 'Old Weather', or the recovery of 'lost' tapes from early space missions) also appeal strongly to the general public. A small selection of those stories features in the introductory article to an issue of GeoResJ dedicated to "data rescue"[1]. Collecting, cataloguing and sharing information on all such projects, regardless of outcome, will thus be a key mission.

[1] "When are Old Data New Data?" Griffin, R.E.M., and the CODATA Task Group for "Data At Risk", 2015, GeoResJ.

Previous Meetings:

11th Plenary IG Berlin: Data Rescue: Determining data sets that are at risk and prioritizing their rescue https://rd-alliance.org/ig-data-rescue-rda-11th-plenary-meeting

10th Plenary IG Montreal: https://www.rd-alliance.org/ig-data-rescue-rda-10th-plenary-meeting

9th Plenary IG Barcelona: https://www.rd-alliance.org/ig-data-rescue-rda-9th-plenary-meeting

https://www.rd-alliance.org/rda-9th-plenary-joint-meeting-ig-data-rescue...

8th Plenary IG Denver: https://rd-alliance.org/ig-data-rescue-rda-8th-plenary-meeting

7th Plenary IG Tokyo: https://rd-alliance.org/joint-meeting-ig-data-rescue-ig-data-fabric-ig-p...

6th Plenary IG Paris: https://rd-alliance.org/ig-data-rescue-p6-joint-session.html

Current Chairs of the IG:  Steve Diggs, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA, USA; Denise Hills Alabama Geological Survey, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA; David Gallaher, National Snow & Ice Data Center, Boulder, CO, USA; Lesley Wyborn, Australian National University, ACT, Australia