News and Announcements

ICPSR Summer Program course on DDI

By robin

June 9, 2009

As you may have heard during last week’s wonderful IASSIST meeting in Tampere, there are still spaces available in the ICPSR Summer Program course on DDI, to be held at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, on July 13-16. The course is titled “Documenting Data Using DDI 3.0: Supporting Research, Collection Management, and Access,” and instructors are Wendy Thomas (Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota) and Arofan Gregory (Open Data Foundation).

Special IQ: Moving Research Data Into and Out of Institutional Repositories

By robin

May 12, 2009

The IASSIST Quarterly IQ Vol. 31 issue 3&4 is now available on the web: http://iassistdata.org/publications/iq/iqvol31.html This issue will only be available on the web. There will be no printed version mailed out to the membership. This double issue is the work of the authors and their articles are introduced below. We are presenting an integrated double issue of high quality. We should also give a special thanks to the editors of the issue.

Google Launches Data Visualization Service

By dgillman

May 5, 2009

Several weeks ago, Google contacted me at BLS to let us know they were using some of our data in a launch of a new service in data visualization. Their plan is to make as much data available as possible with as rich a tool set as they can provide. To see an example, enter the phrase “US Unemployment Rate” in the Google search box. The top link sends you to a page that allows you to superimpose historical graphs of unemployment rates down to any county in the US.

New IQ!

By robin

March 26, 2009

The IASSIST Quarterly (IQ Vol. 31 issue 2 - 2007) is now available on the web: http://iassistdata.org/publications/iq/iqvol31.html This issue will be printed and mailed to the membership. From next issue IASSIST will be saving trees and only publish the IQ on the web. We hope you agree with our decision. Thanks. Some of you are now getting ready for the IASSIST conference in Tampere, Finland 26.-29. of May. Remember if you are giving presentations that you could write the presentation as an article for the IQ.

New Data Management and Sharing Guidance

By robin

February 4, 2009

The UK Data Archive would like to announce the release of its new suite of web pages providing guidance on data management and sharing. The pages provide data creators, data managers and data curators with best practice strategies and methods for creating, preparing and storing shareable datasets. Advice has been divided into a number of key areas or modules providing detailed information on each topic. These are: · Sharing data - why and how?

Symposium on Institutional Data Services at Edinburgh

By robin

February 2, 2009

The Edinburgh University Data Library celebrated 25 years of support for staff and students in their discovery, access, use and management of research datasets. On 5 December 2008, following on from the Digital Curation Centre international conference held in Edinburgh that week, friends and colleagues from near and far gathered in the afternoon at the EDINA offices to celebrate the milestone with short speeches and cutting the cake, along with food, drink and toasts.

The Digging Into Data Challenge

By robin

February 2, 2009

The Digging into Data Challenge is an international grant competition sponsored by four leading research agencies, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) from the United Kingdom, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) from the United States, the National Science Foundation (NSF) from the United States, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) from Canada. For more details: http://www.diggingintodata.org/ – Joel Herndon

Canadian Research Data Strategy Working Group Established

By robin

August 26, 2008

Research Data Strategy Working Group Established http ://cisti-icist.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/media/press/rds_group_e.html, press release, August 12, 2008. The research process generates huge amounts of data that are an important part of Canada’s scholarly record and hold enormous potential as an additional discovery and problem-solving tool for researchers. Unfortunately, Canada has no nationally adopted standards or policies governing how this data is collected, catalogued, or preserved. Research Data Strategy Working Group Established http ://cisti-icist.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/media/press/rds_group_e.html, press release, August 12, 2008.

new IQ

By robin

August 15, 2008

The IASSIST Quarterly (IQ Vol. 31 issue 1 - 2007) is now available on the web: http://iassistdata.org/publications/iq/iqvol31.html Welcome to the first issue of the IASSIST Quarterly, vol. 31. We have passed the 34th IASSIST conference, also known as the Stanford IASSIST 2008 conference - best ever. However, the IASSIST Quarterly vol. 31 is known also as the 2007 volume. Yes, we are behind our schedule; but at least we are consistently so.

The Petabyte Age

By jajacobs

June 30, 2008

The June 23, 2008 issue of WIRED MAGAZINE (issue 16.07) has several stories about large datasets. The Petabyte Age: Because More Isn’t Just More – More Is Different Sensors everywhere. Infinite storage. Clouds of processors. Our ability to capture, warehouse, and understand massive amounts of data is changing science, medicine, business, and technology. As our collection of facts and figures grows, so will the opportunity to find answers to fundamental questions.