The Social Science Interest Group was endorsed in 2019, in order "to provide a place for our members to share solutions and concerns with others in our fields". In consultation with the community, the group identified three core areas of interest for the focus of the group in it's first phase of activity:
- data quality
- data policy
- sensitive data
The group has now been active for three years, and has contributed to the development of activities across various RDA initiatives aligned with these three areas of interest, including the establishment of the Sensitive Data IG (Plenaries 16-18) and a series of data quality meetings at Plenaries 15 and 18. It is therefore timely to revisit the charter and activities of the IG to set the direction for the group in our next phase of activity.
This meeting of the Social Science IG will focus on these next steps. The session will be split into two sections:
- In part one, the chairs will provide a review of the activities of the group to this point, aligned with the three areas of interest
- In part two, the chairs will then facilitate an open discussion with IG members on revisions to the group charter and current and future areas of interest
Collaborative session notes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nim892vQsyFVPK8fw4MP8y9vFFleg_Om1HN9...
0-10m: Introduction to the Social Science IG
10-40m: The SSIG so far - where have we been?
- 10-20m: Data policy (Jon Crabtree)
- 20-30m: Sensitive data (Steve McEachern)
- 30-40m: Data quality (Ron Dekker)
40-50m: Q&A on progress so far
50-85m: New directions for the SSIG
- 50-55m: Setting the scene - future options for the group (Chairs)
- 55-85m: Open discussion on new directions
85-90m: Wrap-up
Social science IG members
Members of related IGs and WGs
RDA community members interested in social science data and research
The Social Sciences Interest Group works to coordinate communications across the various current RDA groups of interest to the social science disciplines and to provide a place for our members to share solutions and concerns with others in our fields. These groups include the FAIRSharing and others noted by Braukmann in the “RDA Overview for the Social Sciences". We coordinate with external social sciences and humanities (SSH) community leaders and organizations such as CESSDA, DDI Alliance, IASSIST, ICPSR, IFDO and WDS, and use this group to connect the various organizations working to promote SSH data sharing.
The SSIG acts as a coordinating group, but also aims to produce new RDA Working Groups to help provide solutions to challenges in our SSH domains. Given the complexity of social science research data, The initial focus of our interest group has been on defining working groups of immediate need to our communities. We recognise that to implement FAIR in our disciplines we need to engage all stakeholders: funders, producers, service providers, users; and as an interest group we have prioritised three specific areas focused on the Social Science research data communities.
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data policy: align – and wherever simplify – data policies and their implications for making data available and for using data.
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sensitive data: estimates are that over 40% of the data in our community is too sensitive to make them openly available without any restrictions or measures.
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quality of data: find automated ways to investigate and provide information on quality
The Social Science Interest Group was established from initial discussions at the RDA Plenary 12 in Botswana. The proposed group and draft charter of the SSIG was presented at RDA Plenary 13 in Philadelphia, with the IG charter approved and the first formal meeting of the endorsed group at RDA Plenary 14 in Helsinki. Subsequently the group has furthered the three core areas of interest through engagement in subsequent meetings and working groups;
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data policy: established in the activity program at Plenary 14.
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sensitive data: contribution to and co-chairing of the Sensitive Data Interest Group, proposed at Plenary 17
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quality of data: the initial planning for this activity occured in preparation for the cancelled meeting at Plenary 15, and resumed in Plenary 18
This meeting will be both informative and working - reviewing activites thus far in the group for current and new interested group members, and open discussion on new directions
Past sessions of the IG are linked above in the group background.
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