IGSN Technical Documentation of the IGSN

2015-06-01 IGSN Telecon

IGSN Telecon June 1, 2015 10:00 EDT

Attendees

Anders Noren, Irina Bastrakova, Cathy Constable, Damian Ulbricht, Dirk Fleischer, Hans Wallrabe-Adams, Jens Klump, Lee Allison, Leslie Hsu, Megan Carter, Kerstin Lehnert.

Notes

  • Curtin University application , ,
    • We should not wait until December to vote on this, so send out an announcement that we will be voting on this at our next telecon. (Resend link to the application.)
  • Invoice schedule
    • Last year (2014) these were sent in December, however we would like to shift to billing at the beginning of the year, this will help with some people’s fiscal years. We’ll send 2015 this summer, and 2016 in January 2016.
    • Concern: Is this going to seem like they are paying 3 times for 2 years?
    • Maybe sending out invoices January, and have the due date later in the year, like June or December.
    • Statutes don’t say anything about the payment schedule, but it would be good custom to pay before voting!
    • PayPal was still very technically difficult due to tax laws so most U.S. entities had to fill out a tax form, to ensure IGSN is a non-profit.
    • Cathy will look into the roster of who has paid and if any difficulties remain.
  • A metadata profile working meeting
    • CSIRO needs to do something with our metadata profiles soon. Someone is looking at Simon Cox’s work from 2013. Jens will feed the results of this into the discussion process.
    • A working group was formed in the iSamples project for identifiers/metadata (WG1), there is funding for workshops. Doing this soon would be good. “Working meeting”
    • Irina: GA would be very interested in participating in this work. They get lots of questions about what metadata needs to be provided. They would like to be more interoperable. A presentation at Geoscience Information Consortium, http://www.geology.cz/gic, about the IGSN - there was a lot of interest.
    • Anders: agrees that this working meeting is needed now, to address how to implement IGSNs.
    • Kerstin: what meetings would be good to have people gather about this? ESIP, but that is coming up soon in mid-July (13-17). Should be ~2 day meeting since there is so much work to do. (So it would need to be adjacent to an existing meeting, not necessarily AT the meeting.) Should be before GSA/AGU.
    • Who would be at the meeting: (Geolink) (Bio person)
    • Dates:
    • Maybe hold a telecon for those that would come, before the actual meeting. Then after the meeting there would be an approval process.
  • Recent/Future Activities
    • We should think of activities that will better integrate IGSN into existing organizations. (RDA, etc.) It is important to be in contact with these other initiatives.
    • Last week was the EarthCube All Hands Meeting and there was a session for the iSamples Research Coordination Network, the IGSN was featured prominently here. Gary Berg-Cross brought up some RDA working groups we should be in contact with - Metadata Registries (to discuss sample metadata profiles), Persistent Identifiers (but both of these WG are wrapping us - we should look at their outcomes and contact them to see where they are going from here, can we still insert IGSN into the conversation)
    • May be able to have a session at Paris RDA. Who will be attending RDA? (only Kerstin)
    • There was a recent meeting of C4P (Collaboration/Cyberinfrastructure for Paleogeoscience). There were many bio- specimen related people there, they are interested in being interoperable with IGSN, and the details of the bio vs. geo specimen metadata profiles. They are interested in developing a proposal to further this. (Rob Guralnick, John Wieczorek (sp), Gil Nelson)
    • KL attended a workshop at AAAS about Reproducibility in the Field Sciences. There was a lot of focus on samples. IGSN was brought up. There was support for it. There will be a workshop report from Marcia McNutt.
    • Should start thinking about preparations for events at GSA and AGU and maybe Goldschmidt (but that is coming up really soon).
      • At AGU, KL proposes to meet on the Sunday before AGU (again) and perhaps allocate the afternoon to technical work on the IGSN.
      • Should information events happen at any other meetings? GeoBerlin?
      • iSamples will be at ESIP (Earth Science Information Partners) (run by Sarah Ramdeen) - provide Sarah with input of recent activities.
  • IGSN syntax and/or Reporting IGSNs to the GFZ
    • Instructions should be available for any allocating agent that clearly state the syntax and procedure.
    • KL: Repositories and larger programs prefer to have IDs that encode a lot of information. However the IGSN was developed to be an ID with no information encoded in it, but used in conjunction with Sample names that have that information. For example, ICDP needs subdomains in the IGSN for individual projects. We should address the issue of syntax again. Allocating agents that want to deviate from 9 digit syntax should seek approval from the IGSN General Assembly. We should discuss some solutions.
    • AN: Should this be a topic for a special meeting or call, how and when do we address this? (Since it is a topic of interest to many.) KL: maybe at this working meeting for metadata that we are planning.
    • See action item: survey membership again about who will be assigning numbers, set up a call.
  • Other issues
    • There were few replies to LH’s query about who would be an allocating agent. Another survey will be made, this time linking with the IGSN syntax issue.
    • Namespaces and IGSNs - we seem to have a working method in place. The recent two-letter namespaces should all be approved there was no dissent after the emails.
    • Set up phone call with RRID people to introduce IGSN and see if IGSN can be integrated into RRI Portal. There is a recent article about this - find and share article. JK notes they are not necessarily globally unique, might be falling into same path as LSID (Life science ID). (if not using Handle system)
    • Items that Jens, Leslie, and Megan can work on in June when Jens is at Lamont:
      • Develop an email to the IGSN Membership about the DataCite options.
      • Create a draft form for application to IGSN e.V. (hardcopy and/or webform)
      • Status/plans for IGSN Handbook
        • JK: we should concentrate on updating the online version of the Handbook as people go to this more
        • KL: we should make the access to information easier
      • Collecting talks/presentations on to the wiki

Actions

  • Send announcement and also notification to Curtin University that we will be voting on the membership before December. (LH)
  • Call for other applications to IGSN e.V. so they can be voted on the same time. (CUAHSI -hydrology samples) (LH)
  • Share list of papers with IGSNs, and link with IGSN webpage, and provide way for authors to submit citations of their IGSN papers. (LH)
  • Collect any talks about IGSN and put on website. (LH)
  • For metadata profile working meeting, make a list of who is invited to meeting (KL, ask other members as well)
  • Announce to membership/group lists that the meeting will be occurring next week, with a draft agenda, and allow others to call in if they would like to participate. (LH)
  • Follow up on article about EOS/etc. (KL)
  • Send another (specific) request to identify those that have or will be assigning numbers (LH) - if they have issues to discuss then set up a dedicated call for these members. (finalize during June meeting with JK)
  • Provide Sarah Ramdeen with update of recent activities before ESIP (LH, KL)
  • Collect attendee list of past meetings to identify active/inactive members (LH) (done)
  • Cathy C. let us know the status of the 2014 invoices and if there are any outstanding problems.