[Esip-documentation] Future directions?

[John Graybeal]

Hi Ted and everyone, including some leading Semantic Tech folks,

I think this is exactly the dilemma the Semantic Technology Committee is facing at this moment, a lot of energy going into clusters while the role of the "general" group is de-emphasized. So it gets less attendance, and has less value for the attendees, which is a vicious cycle. We're trying to adapt but it's early days.

Responding to your question: I struggle to maintain the big picture in the face of so many individual projects. With a tool like CEDAR that can represent many different specifications (though not recursive ones, alas), I try to keep up with every advancement, and tell whether the latest greatest thing actually represents anything more useful or important that what we defined 20 years ago. Between that effort and our semantics focus (BioPortal/OntoPortal), I'm particular interested in the intersection of practical semantics and documentation. Plus, the FAIR initiatives are clearly taking over the collective mind, for better and for worse, and figuring out how those "data documentation" principles and implementing efforts will or won't move things forward is yet another dimension. 

I too am happy to talk about the technologies I help create, as I think they are potentially useful across the ESIP community. But I'm acutely aware that at any particular ESIP (or RDA, or ...) group like Documentation, the level of interest is likely to be low, our needs and interests are so diverse. Even if we care about a particular technology space, we come from so many domain spaces. And our varied roles mean we interact with documentation in so many different ways.

My own guess as to the optimal Documentation cluster strategyis that it has to stick to topics that are (a) general to all ESIP domains (e.g., not implementations or standards that a particular domain did with one-off software or custom specs), and (b) are of practical use immediately to communities and to the various roles filled by people in those communities. (Or at least, have the expectation that presenters or topics will provide lessons learned or other teachable moments.)  But those are big shoes to fill—there may be very few projects that satisfy those criteria.

On Semantic Tech we agreed we'd like to get more of the other cluster leads or attendees to 'report back', and we'd like to make the Committee all about the integration and understanding of progress in the individual clusters. Maybe even there is a role for engineering critique of cluster work to help people assess the work's reusability. Likely that would be fraught, but might be very stimulating for the attendees…

Given that two 'generalized' groups are seeing a similar problem, it might be worth opening up *that* discussion (a different one then the one you have brought up) to ESIP higher-ups/community leaders.

Thanks for asking the great questions.

John




> On Mar 1, 2021, at 9:58 AM, Ted Habermann via Esip-documentation <esip-documentation at lists.esipfed.org> wrote:
> 
> Hello all,
> 
> Over the last several years many ESIP clusters have formed to deal with topics that are related to documentation, from Discovery to Information Quality to Samples to Research Object Citation, etc. These clusters reflect the breadth of the documentation challenges in the Earth Sciences and the general interest in these problems. These more focused groups are certainly addressing important and interesting problems, but, at the same time, they all take up some of the limited cycles that we all have to contribute to ESIP and other voluntary efforts…
> 
> It is time for the Documentation Cluster to make some decisions about future directions. If we are to continue, we need some topics for discussion and people that are interested in chairing these discussions. My interests these days are on metadata evaluation <https://metadatagamechangers.com/blog/2021/2/2/a-pid-feast-for-research-pidapalooza-2021>, connectivity <https://metadatagamechangers.com/blog/2021/1/27/connectivity> and PID adoption in the major international infrastructures (Crossref, DataCite). I am also working on developing metadata conventions with the USGS National Digital Catalog, UNAVCO, and IRIS. Of course I am happy to discuss these with cluster members any time, but that is obviously not sustainable.
> 
> ESIP Clusters are created and sustained by members interested in common ideas and needs. Where do you want the cluster to go? Please let us know…
> 
> Stay safe,
> Ted
> 
> <Logo - Light - Better Text Below Logo copy.png>
> Dr. Ted Habermann
> Metadata Game Changer <http://metadatagamechangers.com/>
> GRID: grid.510301.6
> ORCID: 0000-0003-3585-6733 <http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3585-6733>
> LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/in/ted-habermann-141b6764/>
> ted at metadatagamechangers.com <mailto:ted at metadatagamechangers.com>
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----------------------
John Graybeal
Administrator—ESIP Community Ontology Repository
jbgraybeal at sonic.net



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