Draft Language for discussion:
In Progress: Jim - per TAC discussion on 7/14 : will rework this document to talk about a TAC task force on interoperability that will interact with/coordinate/guide pilot projects that will tackle the types of deliverables outlined here already)
Purpose:
To support the NDS Vision of a national capability for research data to be broadly accessible across disciplines and across repositories, services, and applications, and to help define an effective level of interoperability between data services participating in NDS Share, the NDS Technical Advisory Committee will launch a task force consisting of self-selecting TAC members and, if and where needed, invited external experts. The Task Force members will work to promote interoperability within NDS and will work to encourage interoperability as a goal within NDS pilot projects, to promote the development of pilot projects specifically focusing on interoperability, and to track and encourage coordination between pilot projects and NDS Share resource and service providers.
Activities:
The Task Force will primarily work electronically and will participate in the monthly TAC meeting by providing a monthly short update and requesting time for specific discussion items to be added to the TAC meeting agenda as useful.
The Task Force will track interoperability-related pilot projects by assigning a liaison to each pilot. It is anticipated that Task Force members will be participating in interoperability-related pilots relevant to their funded projects and other NDS-related activities and could naturally fill a liaison role. For projects that do not have a Task Force member who can act as a liaison, the Task Force will seek a volunteer from its membership to become a liaison. Liaisons will serve as a two-way communication mechanism between pilot projects and the Task Force.
Specific activities the Task Force will engage in include:
- Developing an online list of interoperability-related pilot projects and references to their interoperability related resources and accomplishments
- Gathering information from NDS resource and service providers regarding their current mechanisms for import/export/exchange of data publications and their interest/involvement in interoperability pilot projects
- Reporting to the TAC and conveying TAC feedback to NDS Share providers, pilot projects, and the NDS Membership
- Reporting at NDS National Meetings and helping to organize cross-group interoperability sessions at such meetings
Proposal for an NDS Interoperability Pilot
Charter:
To contribute to the realization of the NDS Vision and take a first-step in making a broad range of published data accessible across the ecosystem of tools and services necessary to realize that vision, the participants in the NDS Interoperability Working Group propose the following:
The establishment of a standard mechanism(s) for any tool to access the full set of data and metadata comprising a data publication, regardless of source, and to work individually and collectively across the NDS Consortium to implement those interfaces within existing tools. Further, we propose to develop suite of test data and tools to assess conformance to the agreed standards. These mechanisms are an important initial step in enabling data to flow seamless across tools and services in a National Data Service ecosystem. Our group anticipates that the proposed work will enable a broad range of further efforts, from assessments of the variations in data types, formats, size, purpose, metadata vocabularies across disciplines and tools, to efforts that would define defining minimal metadata standards that would enable interoperability at the level required for functionality such as federated search or data fusion.
Products:
- Documented mechanism(s) for data/metadata access that will include an internet-accessible programming interface(s) and, potentially, a serialized export format and/or container/library-level mechanisms
- Two or more interoperable tools/services that demonstrate the ability to read data from multiple compliant sources
- A suite of test data publications that can be used by cyberinfrastructure developers to test their implementations
- A tool(s)/service(s) that assess the compliance of results returned through the defined mechanisms
- A written report documenting the decision process and final result, and including an initial assessment of potential next steps
Plan:
The group will be open and will solicit participation from the NDS community at large.
In the first month, the group will collect documentation of existing APIs and serialized formats in use today. The group will also document the range of options that could be pursued in defining a common mechanism. As part of this effort, the group will look at available standards, interoperability mechanisms that have been proposed through RDA (e.g. https://rd-alliance.org/group/research-data-repository-interoperability-wg/case-statement/research-data-repository), Earth Cube, or other forums.
The group will plan a series of online discussions to evaluate the options and work to achieve a consensus recommended data interoperability mechanisms. As necessary, group leadership will focus the effort around a minimal set of options based on a consensus across projects that are willing to implement them and an assessment of whether initial implementations can be developed within 6 months.
The project will leverage common software engineering tools (e.g. GitHub) and the cloud resources available through NDS Labs as applicable (e.g. to store test data and share prototype code and testing tools). The group does not anticipate needing staff time from NDS beyond basic support in using the NDS Labs cloud capabilities. (NDS Labs staff would be welcome to participate in the group, contributing time and effort on the same volunteer basis as other participants.)