DASISH Events

DASISH held its final conference in Sweden at Gothenburg's School of Business 27-28 November 2014.

The conference took place over two days and presented and discussed the results that the DASISH project's WP's achieved.

The aim of the three-year DASISH (Digital Services Infrastructure for Social Sciences and Humanities) project has been to provide solutions to a number of common issues relevant for the five ESFRI projects in social sciences and humanities - CESSDA, CLARIN, DARIAH, ESS and SHARE.

DASISH has identified four major areas of activity namely data quality, data archiving, data access and legal and ethics aspects. The outcome forms the basis for educational activities and for outreach to the communities that are to benefit from the work.

Through DASISH the participating infrastructures have not only designed new solutions for specific problems and a consolidation of their infrastructure building, but have worked out solutions facilitating interdisciplinary cross-walks of their researchers. This will be of mutual benefit for the five infrastructures and the communities they serve.

This conference will present the results and solutions of the DASISH project.

Programme

Thursday 27th November 2014

09.00 – 10.00   Registration, coffee – Hyllan

10.00 – 10.20   Opening of conference, including

Welcome and Presentation of the day’s program by Hans Jørgen Marker

Practicalities by Daniel Knezevic

10.20 – 10.45   DASISH result overview at a glance by Hans Jørgen Marker

10.45 – 11.00   Coffee break with preparation of demo and poster area – Hyllan

11.00 – 12.30   THEME – Data Access

WP5 AAI for the SSH – Daan Broeder 10m

WP5 PIDs for data access – Birger Jerlehag 10m

WP5 A Joint SSH metadata domain – Binyam Gebrekidan Gebre 20min.

WP5 Web Annotation Framework – Olha Shkaravska 20min.

WP5 Data access for the SSH, what is specific about the SSH? – Daan Broeder, 10m

Wp7 Training and education material about data access – Claudia Engelhardt     10 min

12.30 – 13.30   Lunch break – Göteborgsrummet

13.30 – 15.00   THEME – Data Archiving

Wp4 Data preservation, Deposit services, Policy rules 90min.

WP4 Data Archiving, Vigdis Kvalheim, NSD

Trust and the European Framework for Audit and Certification of Digital Repositories, Claudia Engelhardt, UGOE

WP 4.3, Convergence of Data Service, Arjan Hogenaar, DANS

Task 4.4: Preservation policy rules – assessments and recommendations, Trond Kvamme, NSD

Wp7 Training and education material about data archiving – Claudia Engelhardt
10 min.

15.00 – 15.15   Coffee – Hyllan

15.15 – 16.00  

Panel the future of data infrastructures in social science and humanities – Strategic board
Bente Maegaard, Bjørn Henrichsen

16.00 – 17.30   Drinks, demos, posters – Interactive session

19.00 – Dinner

Christmas Buffet at Gothia Towers

Friday 28th November 2014

09.00 – 09.15   Wrap-up from yesterday, opening of day 2

09.15 – 11.00  THEME – Data Quality

WP2 Reference Architecture – Maarten Hoogerwerf 20 min.

WP2 Tool and services registry/TERESAH – Valentina Asciutti, Johan Fihn 20m

Wp5  Metadata Quality Improvement – Marion Wittenberg 10min

Wp3 Occupation data, Questionnaire, Field work monitoring system – Eric Harrison

11:00 – 11:30   Coffee break with preparation of demo and poster area – Hyllan

11.30 – 12.15   Wp3 Occupation data, Questionnaire, Field work monitoring system Eric Harrison

DASISH WP3.3a: Fieldwork Management System (FMS), Yvette Prestage 

Keystroke analysis and implications for fieldwork, Johanna Bristle with poster

WP3.2a & c, Questionnaire Design and Development Tool (QDDT) and the Question Variable Data Base (QVDB), Yvette Prestage

DEVELOPMENT OF CASCOT 5.0 (a multi-language text coding tool), Peter Elias

Translation Management Tool, Eric Balster  

WP 3.1 CAPI and CAWI occupation coding, Eric Balster

 12.15 – 13.15  THEME – Legal and Ethics

Wp6 New challenges, Preservation challenges, VCC 60 min

Data protection and Copyright Issues – National Variations

Vigdis Kvalheim, NSD
Koenraad De Smedt, UiB
Linn-Merethe Rød, NSD
Carla  Parra, UiB

13.15 – 14.15   Lunch break – Göteborgsrummet

14.15 – 14.45   Key End Note – Peter Ph. Mohler, Mannheim University

14.45 – 15.00   Closing of conference by Hans Jørgen Marker

The conference took place December 8-9, 2014 in Cologne.

The workshop addressed differences in the functionalities and procedures of commonly-used PID systems and services in the SSH communities, with an overview of PID systems from both technical and policy aspects. These will be complemented by case studies from CESSDA, CLARIN, and DARIAH.

Emerging national PID policies and the challenges regarding the linking of data with publications will be addressed and discussed. The workshop will be complemented by a panel discussion on the challenges and possible strategies for service and data providers as we move towards interoperability and cooperation, and eventually a European PID strategy.

The objectives of the workshop were to:

• increase awareness of the different usages and possibilities of existing PID services,
• intensify the dialogue between PID service providers, data providers and researchers by creating a forum to discuss open questions, requirements and limitations of PID services from the perspective of the SSH communities, as well as possible solutions, and
• promote the exchange of information and best practices concerning PID policies within and across SSH ESFRI projects.

Final Program with presentations

8th December

12:30-13:00  Registration

13:00-13:30  Welcome and Introduction - Alexia Katsanidou ((GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences)

13:30-15:30  PID Initiatives in Europe

1. Dutch View on URN:NBN and Related PID Services -  Arjan Hogenaar (DANS - Data Archiving and Networked Services)
2. DataCite - DOI Names for Research Data -  Brigitte Hausstein (da|ra - Registrierungsagentur für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsdaten)
3. EPIC Services - an Overview -  Ulrich Schwardmann (GWDG - Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung mbH Göttingen)
4. The ARK Identifier Scheme: General Characteristics and Implementation at the National Library of France - Sébastian Peyrard (BnF - Bibliothèque nationale de France)

Session Chair: Alexia Katsanidou (GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences)

15:30-16:00 Coffee Break

16:00-18:30  PID Policies in DASISH

1. User Requirements for PID Service Providers: Survey Results from DASISH WP 5.2 - Catharina Wasner (GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences)
2. The Role of Persistent Identifiers in CLARIN - Dieter Van Uytvanck (CLARIN  Eric)
3. Towards a PID Policy for CESSDA: Technical and Policy Related Challenges - Alexia Katsanidou (GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences)
4.  DARIAH:
   • Persistent Identifier Policies for DARIAH - Tibor Kálmán (GWDG - Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung mbH Göttingen)
   • Deterministic Assignment of PIDs: Why and How? The SLDR Experience - 

     Bernard Bel/Arnaud Gingold (LPL - Laboratoire Parole et Langage)

Session Chair: Brigitte Hausstein (da|ra - Registrierungsagentur für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsdaten)

18:30-20:00 Dinner at GESIS

20:00 - Cologne Christmas Market

9th December

8:30 – 10:30  Other Perspectives on PIDs

1. PID Information Types - An RDA Working Group - Thomas Zastrow (RZG - Rechenzentrum Garching der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft)
2. ODIN:ORCID and DataCite Interoperability Network - Rachael Kotarski (The British Library)
3. The APARSEN Interoperability Framework for Persistent Identifier - Maurizio Lunghi (FRD - Fondazione Rinascimento Digitale)
4. Linking Research Data and Literature - Katarina Boland (GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences)

Session Chair: Catharina Wasner (GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social
Sciences)

10:30 - 11:00 Coffee Break

11:30 – 13:00 Panel Discussion: Towards Interoperability and Cooperation

Moderator: Thomas Zastrow (RZG - Rechenzentrum Garching der Max- Planck-Gesellschaft)

December 2-3, 2014, London, United Kingdom

Hosted by the Institute of Education(IOE), University of London

DASISH will be represented at

• session A1, Tuesday December 2, 10.45-12.15  and
• session C2, Tuesday December 2, 15.45-16.45

See program with abstracts

16^th-17^th October 2014 – NWO, The Hague, Java Building, Laan van Nieuw Oost-Indië 300

The workshop’s focus was on the tools and standards for audit and certification comprised in the European Framework for Audit and Certification of Digital Repositories, the Data Seal of Approval (DSA), DIN 31644/nestor Seal, and ISO 16363. Workshop presentations and discussions dealt with getting to know the standards, the conditions for their implementation as well as their current use in the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH).

The European Framework for Audit and Certification was established in 2010 with the objective of better coordinating and structuring the emerging landscape of audit and certification procedures. It defines three levels of certification:

• basic certification: equivalent to the Data Seal of Approval;
• extended certification: granted to archives / repositories which have obtained the DSA and successfully underwent an external peer-review based on DIN 31644 or ISO 16363;
• formal certification: granted to  archives / repositories which have obtained the DSA and successfully completed a full external audit based on DIN 31644 or ISO 16363.

In the first part of the workshop, representatives of three European SSH infrastructures - Vigdis Kvalheim from CESSDA , Pavel Straňák from CLARIN  and Henk Harmsen from DARIAH-EU  - talked about the importance and use of certification standards in the respective infrastructures. In all of them, certification of member data archives and repositories plays a role, with the Data Seal of Approval (DSA) being the instrument most commonly employed. In CLARIN, one of the requirements for becoming an infrastructure centre or a service providing centre is to undergo certification through the DSA or the MOIMS-RAC approach . CESSDA AS also works towards integrating the DSA into the set of obligations of service providers. In DARIAH-EU certification is one of five short-term goals. One concrete aim in this context is that the repositories that form the backbone of the DARIAH infrastructure have obtained the DSA by 2016.

 The ensuing discussion focused on drivers behind the decision to undergo audit and certification:  

• There was consensus in the group that audit and certification are becoming increasingly important to satisfy funder requirements. This is specifically the case for publicly funded institutions, which to receive funding are expected to prove that they are capable of offering high-quality preservation / curation services in accordance with international standards. From this perspective, acquiring certification is equivalent to creating a competitive advantage.
• However, “self-assurance” was an equally important aspect pointed out by representatives from archives that already underwent an audit / certification procedure, or are planning to do so in the near future. Thus, audits were regarded as an important instrument in determining whether the preservation / curation procedures and workflows of the archive are adequate. Accordingly, audit procedures were used to support the detection of gaps and potential risks.
• At the same time, there seemed to be consensus that in the SSH community demands from users are currently not a considerable driving force behind the decision to undergo external audit / certification. This could change in the future, especially if the different seals or “badges” are recognized as an indicator of high-quality services by users. 

The workshop continued with presentations of the DSA (Paul Trilsbeek) and the nestor Seal (Dr. Christian Keitel) audit standards as well as several case studies from the different ESFRI projects (specifically, LINDAT, DANS, and GESIS). Finally, Barbara Sierman presented the current state of ISO 16363.

The subsequent discussion dealt with the question whether every data service has to be certified, ways of lowering the threshold for entrance into audit and certification, and alternative ways of creating trust – specifically with an eye to smaller data archives or repositories with very limited resources.

• There was consensus that not every data service needs to be certified. But the decision on whether certification should be pursued or not should not only depend on the available resources of a data service, but also on its nature. As an example, participants referred to the front office-back office model employed in the Netherlands. In this approach, the responsibility for the long-term preservation and availability of research outputs lies with the “back office” organisations (centres with a national scope such as DANS or 3TU.Datacentrum), whereas the “front office” institutions (located at higher education institutions, research institutes etc.) concentrate on communication with and support of data producers and users on a local level. In line with this division of responsibilities, certification is deemed necessary only for the “back office” organisations.
• In terms of the effort required, the DSA was seen as a suitable “entrance point” to certification even for smaller institutions. Among the data archives that already obtained the DSA are also one person archives, which shows that the DSA audit procedure is doable even with limited human and financial resources. It was also noted that to a certain extent the necessary time and resources are a question of scale. While bigger archives have more resources, their size also makes the process of documenting procedures and of creating required policies more time-consuming.
• The group also discussed measures for creating trust that can be undertaken independently from certification. It was deemed very important to enable users to do their own “trust checks” on object level and thereby evaluate themselves if a digital object is authentic or not. To make this possible, archives have to engage in transparent communication with their designated community. Another important point in this context is the careful consideration of the significant properties of the information objects to be preserved and their adequacy to the needs of the user community.

Overall, the discussions showed that although the preservation landscape in the SSH domain is moving towards more standardisation and greater homogeneity with regard to audit and certification, it is neither necessary nor desirable to tar all archives with the same brush. Thus tiered or multi-level approaches such as the Dutch front office-back office model or the European Framework for Audit and Certification make it possible to achieve standardisation without losing sight of scale and archive- or discipline-specific requirements.

A report about the workshop from a participant’s point of view is available on the blog “Bits & Pieces. Digital Preservation at Edinburgh University”: report of day 1, report of day 2.

Programme and presentations

Thursday, Oct 16

Friday, Oct 17

At IASSIST 2014 June 3-6, DASISH had a session with seven presentations, session 1B.

See the abstract for session and the presentations at http://www.library.yorku.ca/cms/iassist/program/sb1/#sb1b

In DASISH work package 3 a prototype multilingual software that will code national language text to an international classification has been developed. The prototype of the software, known as CASCOT[1], now exists in a multi-lingual version (CASCOT 5.0). However, development of the English and Dutch versions revealed that a ‘fine-tuning’ of the software is required.  This is achieved by using the software and its coding rules to re-code job title text that has already been coded to ISCO 08. A specialised editor has been developed for this purpose.

This Workshop was organised to demonstrate the use of the software to improve the performance of the software in different languages, and to invite the participants to continue fine-tuning the software in their national language.  

View the report on the workshop (docx)

Access and Authentication Infrastructure (AAI) is a vital component of any data infrastructure, ensuring that those entitled to access data or services can, and those that are not can’t. On October 17-18 2013 a workshop took place looking at Federations for eHumanities and eSocial Sciences. It was organized by Peter Gietz from DAASI, representing DARIAH, and hosted by GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences as part of DASISH Workpackage 7 Education and Training activities.

The workshop itself was split into two parts. Day one looked at Shibboleth and SAML enabling applications as authentication systems. Day two moved on to different federated access solutions and their implications. Two ways in which the workshop stimulated knowledge in the area of AAI was to contribute to an Input Document for the workshop [http://daasi.de/no-se/DARIAH-DASISH-AAI-WS-Discussion-input-v3.pdf] and to inform the upcoming DASISH WP7 training module on AAI.

The workshop was attended by a total of 35 people over the two days, 18 for day one and 26 for day two. The audience included representatives from all five DASISH ESFRI members and others who had an interest in AAI issues. Participants included visitors from the Czech Republic, Finland, Norway and the United Kingdom.

Slides of Day 1: Developer Workshop on Shibboleth and SAML enabling Applications

Slides of Day 2: Workshop on a Federation for eHumanities and eSocial Science

Gothenburg 4‐5th October 2013

The workshop was held with the purpose of exchanging information and enhancing coordination between the infrastructures and projects active in Social Sciences and Humanities.  
The workshop contained presentations from the five infrastructures: CESSDA, CLARIN, DARIAH, ESS and SHARE and from the projects present: DASISH, ADRIADNE, CENDARI, CHARISMA, DwB, EHRI, InGRID, followed up by general discussions about the future challenges facing the projects and the infrastructures.
See the output of the discussions in the report from the workshop

The DASISH Workshop Access Policies and Licensing for Archives and Repositories  at the IASSIST 2013 Conference in Cologne, Germany took place May 28, 2013.

The event brought together representatives from the five ESFRI partners to talk about current practice within their community on licensing data for reuse. This included talking about existing polices, standards, and issues and concluded with the public unveiling of an educational resource produced by DASISH partners in WP7.

View the programme at the Iassist 2013 website

The audience was of 23 people of which almost half came from outside Europe, including representation from North America, Australia, Taiwan. Two thirds of the audience worked in data archives or libraries, with the remaining third split equally between researchers and government statistical agencies.

The presentations from the workshop can be seen below:

• Horton, L., GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences: Access Policies and Licensing for Archives and Repositories
• Gjesdal, A. M. & Lyse, G. I., University of Bergen: CLARIN licensing schemes
• Horton, L., GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences: A look at CESSDA and data re-use licenses
• Romanello, M.,  German Archaeological Institute / King's College London:  Licensing Research Data: Experiences and Perspectives in DARIAH-DE
• DASISH workshop on Access and Licencing:  European Social Survey (ESS)
• Engelhardt, C., Gnadt, T., University of Göttingen: DASISH Online Training Module
• Balster, E., CentERdata: SHARE DATA ACCESS 

Digital Resources in International Survey Research

12-13 December 2012, Mannheim, Germany

The European Social Survey (ESS) and the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) collaborate in DASISH WP3 in order to develop e-solutions that support quality management in international surveys with regard to

1. questionnaire design documentation,
2. translation documentation,
3. fieldwork monitoring, and
4. occupation coding.

To obtain guidance from other international survey projects and institutions, the ESS organized in WP8 the 1^st Quantitative Workshop under the title “Digital Resources for International Survey Research”. It was held on December 12-13, 2012 in Mannheim, Germany. Invited experts presented their tools, shared their experience and readily engaged in fruitful discussions with members of the DASISH project.

• Relating to questionnaire design documentation, Andrej Kveder (NIDI) presented the routines developed in the Generations and Gender Programme (GGP) for documenting the implementation of survey instruments across time and countries.
• In the section on translation documentation, Michèle Ernst-Stähli (FORS) described the challenge to carry out international surveys in the multi-lingual context of Switzerland and deduced requirements a translation documentation tool should meet. Steve Schwarzer (TNS Political and Social) described the data base established to manage the translations of the Eurobarometer Surveys of the European Commission. Evelyn Brislinger (GESIS) demonstrated the information tool that Data Archives has used to make documentation of the European Values Study across time, countries, and languages easily accessible for data users.
• With regard to fieldwork monitoring, Kyle Fennell (NORC) elaborated on the extensive production and use of paradata that can be highly informative on the quality of the survey process.
• For occupation coding, Peter Elias and Margret Birch (University of Warwick) gave an update on the extension of CASCOT, a tool for automated coding of answers to open-ended occupation questions, to other languages. Kea Tijdens (University of Amsterdam) presented a different approach of answer trees that is successfully applied in the web-based Wageindicator Survey. Silke Schneider (GESIS) outlined a new project that aims at developing similar solutions for coding respondents’ educational attainment.

All participants appreciated the opportunity for exchange across survey projects as well as between academic and commercial institutions. New connections have been made, and further collaborations have already been set up in the aftermath. The two Quantitative Workshops included in WP8 are valuable instruments to foster progress in the collaborative work inside DASISH. The 2^nd Quantitative Workshop is envisaged for 2014 and will focus on the presentation of the tools developed in DASISH and their discussion with experts in the world of international survey research. 

View workshop agenda (pdf)

Presentations from the 1st DASISH Quantitative Workshop

• Angelika Scheuer: The DASISH project

Questionnaire development documentation

• Sally Widdop: Documenting the question design process on the ESS
• Andrej Kveder: Questionnaire development documentation in GGP

Tool for the development of multi-language Questionnaire

• Maurice Martens: Tool for the development of multi-language questionnaires
• Michèle Ernst Stähli: Integrated survey management tool
• Steve Schwarzer: The development of multi-language questionnaires - multi-stage checks and semi-automatization
• Evelyn Brislinger: Workflow connecting Translation and Documentation

Developing a fieldwork monitoring system

• Johanna Bristle: Fieldwork Monitoring Plans and Goals
• Kyle Fennell and Tom W. Smith: From questions to interventions

Surveying and coding the occupation question

• Peter Elias and Margaret Birch: CASCOT and the Coding of Occupations in European Surveys
• Kea Tijdens: Measuring and coding occupations in multi-country surveys
• Silke Schneider: A project on computer-assisted education measurement

The DASISH Qualitative Data Workshop took place at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth on 21st November 2012. 

Representatives from ten European countries were in attendance. The workshop explored some of the shared and distinctive challenges for qualitative data in the areas of data archiving, data access and legal and ethical issues.

Read more about the The Irish Qualitative Data Archive at the homepage of Maynooth University