RDS Meeting Minutes 1-17-13

Allan Barclay
1. Housekeeping (2 min)
a. Minutes-taking process for these meetings (Ryan)
Dorothea will – woo!
b. Regular future meeting day (Jan)
Sounds like 1st or 3rd Thursdays at 10 (not 11)
Special guest: Scott Prater! Wants to be a semi-regular attendee (he’s in SDG, now w/Bruce B); works with digital object preservation & access…
2. Updates (4 min)
Holz Brownbag (Dorothea)
Problems with WID, so bailing; SLIS commons reserved for 4 dates. Can someone reserve Memorials commons? Scott can. Topics are:
?? – Data Speed Dating – she has about half dozen, others can still do things if they want; will market as before, open to new ideas
?? – Stem Cell research & databanks
April 16th – LEL and 
?? – in house DB on monkey behavior
Dorothea can do video taping for all but first one (doesn’t make sense really); Laura can get on some DoIT newsletter; Dorothea has idea about a group that reaches outside UW (i.e. business/industry)
Upcoming workshops on data visualization and data sharing (presenters)
Ryan & Allan – data viz; at Ebling Symposium Auditorium at Microbial Sciences center; 
Data Sharing – is this something we’re doing, or just what we already did? (needs clarification)
Website subcommittee
Need membership confirmed, then to meet. 
Things to work on are: education tab, blog formatting and content, UW-Madison theme & child theme, other changes (i.e. blog to replace video widget?). Barry is also willing to join the group – so now its Allan, Laura, Caroline and Barry.
Tools review subcommittee
No meeting since last meeting, no report, nothing new to report. Still need to get blog postings up (some done, sime still in pipeline)
3. Research Data Management Implementations (RDMI) workshop (Alan) (10 min)
is for more info; Alan will be there in person, can try to make connections if we want. March 13-14; send Dorothea sessions we’re esp. interested in.
* Arrangements for webcast version
* Position paper for UW-Madison
Dorothea and Alan are cobbling something together; maybe can do a quick subcommittee and including non-RDS folks. What we’ve been doing, struggles we’ve had, where we want to go plus environmental scan, and optimistic vision of the future! Ryan, Trisha, Alan, Dorothea, Jan, others. Run by group, only 3-5 pages, short term group.
4. Cloud services and research data (All) (10 min)
- What services are coming or here?
Google Apps already; Box contract should be imminent; can already to to uwmadison.box.com and authenticate. 50 gigs storage? Access to some apps/processes like sharing. Contract similar to Google Apps – IP and legal protection, etc etc. Can share with anyone who has a Box contract, even non-university affiliated people. Doesn’t prevent sharing, so potential danger. Functionally very similar to DropBox – desktop syncing, etc. And DB has some issues with security issues, non-encrypted transmission of data. Next IT Policy meeting will be talking about this…
?? Does this replace that service DoIT was going to roll out? Don’t think so, but will replace MyWebSpace. Yay!!
- What should RDS do to help researchers evaluate/use cloud services for research data?
Tools group, or others – what do we do? Not allowed to promote widely til official. Maybe we can piggyback on top of the official campus announcement, putting a research data spin? We really want to be able to point to things like the UULA, TOS, etc. One issue – you can collaborate/annotate but not a way to export that info? Discussions, tasks, comments, etc all lost. Not sure about There is versioning. We can and should push on them (Bruce Maas?) to make that functionality. It’ll be a NetPlus service. Vendor lock-in problem. Sounds like no incentive for open standards like DDI. We do have some leverage; and part of I2 of course. Shooting for Fall rollout but everything is still up in the air. There are some starter KB files but still in pilot mode. Have to transfer content out if you leave UW, most likely (like Google Apps)
They’re also looking at other cloud services – like maybe Amazon, maybe also as a NetPlus service. Lots of advantage in speed of getting something set up, cost, etc.
5. Retreat planning (All) (35 min)
* What are the goals?
* What topics should be covered?
* Should we invite any guests or speakers?
* When/where/How much time?
A half or full day. Friday, one of the first three in Feb. Location ideas? Still need to see about food service. How about WID, cause they have food there. Union South. Memorial Commons? Pyle Center? Ryan will start doing a little calling around. Maybe wait on half vs. full when arrangements are more locked down.
Two big obstacles – largely unfunded, and getting message out more. What have we done so far, how do we measure, and use that as benchmark. Review of services – are they useful?
How do we know what works with NSF management plan? Have we gotten anyone to come back with a followup?
Outside people to ask/bring in – Judy Caruso? Bruce Maas? Lee Konrad, or would that make sense in a leadership transition. Sounds like high level negotiations are going on now, about what the libraries’ role is in research data, but you didn’t hear that, and Dorothea didn’t say it.
Steve Ackerman, Alan and Julie Schneider will be working on campus strategy but just getting started. And Steve is a data person at SSEC. He’d be good, been talking about this recently (well), etc. Interim dean for research computing at grad level (?)
Can we talk to someone about graduate-level training?
Oh – and SLIS is sponsoring Dorothea’s Boot Camp
There is a Research Data Day that Leah and all are putting together; still looking for an additional speaker.
Retreat timing – early Feb (8th?), otherwise backup plan in March? 22nd maybe? Data Day is March 21st (Hummanities/Social Science
Email any other ideas to Jan and Ryan…