CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT
(Revised October 1997)
The Conference on Scientific and Technical Data Exchange and Integration
Sponsored by U.S . National Committee for CODATA
National Research Council
December 15-17, 1997
Natcher Conference Center
National Institutes of Health
Bethesda, MD
Purpose of the Conference
The exchange of scientific and technical (S&T) data among different
computing environments and across diverse scientific and engineering
disciplines presents major problems that hinder full exploitation of
computer-based modeling, the Internet, modern scientific databases, and new
computer technology. The U.S. National Committee for CODATA is sponsoring
the first major interdisciplinary conference on this subject on December
15-17, 1997, in Bethesda, MD. The conference has three main objectives:
- To identify areas, with special emphasis on interdisciplinary needs, in
which data exchange and integration are important;
- To highlight major S&T data exchange and integration efforts already
underway or in planning; and
- To foster serious and significant cooperation in these kinds of
activities among scientific and engineering disciplines, and governmental
and non-governmental organizations.
Conference Sponsors
Defense Technical Information Center
Department of Energy
Environmental Protection Agency
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
National Institutes of Health
National Institute of Standards and Technology
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
National Science Foundation
United States Geological Survey
Hughes STX Corporation
TRW
Preliminary Program
Monday, December 15, 1997
8:40 a.m. Welcome
Goetz Oertel, U.S. National Committee for CODATA
8:45 Conference Introduction
William Wulf, National Academy of Engineering
Plenary Session 1: The Importance of Scientific Data Sharing
9:00 Sharing Scientific Data-A Key to Progress in Research and
Development
Rita Colwell, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute
9:30 Getting More from Our Research Investment-Cross-discipline
Research and Data Sharing
Neal Lane, National Science Foundation
10:00 Data Exchange and Integration-Fundamental Issues
John Rumble, National Institute of Standards and Technology
10:30 Coffee
10:50 An Industrial Perspective-Why Industry Shares Scientific and
Technical Data, and How
Robert Kiggans, PDES, Inc.
11:20 The Need for Data Exchange in Global Change Research
Robert Corell, National Science Foundation
11:50 Lunch
1:00 p.m. Contributed Papers, Posters, and Demonstrations
(available for viewing until noon on Wednesday)
Plenary Session 2: Tearing Down the Walls-The Art and Science of Data
Exchange and Integration
3:00 Data Exchange and Integration Approaches
Gio Wiederhold, Stanford University
3:30 Information Modeling
Yuhwei Yang, Product Data Integration Technology
4:00 Resolving Conceptual Disagreements
Frank Olken, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
4:30 The Sociology of Data Exchange-Reaching Consensus on Data
Exchange Tools
G. Bruce Wiersma, University of Maine at Orono
5:00 Making Data Easy to Share
Ben Shneiderman, University of Maryland
5:30 Reception
7:30 Adjourn
Tuesday, December 16
Plenary Session 3: Challenges to Cooperation-Why Data Exchange Must Succeed
9:00 a.m. Sharing Scientific and Technical Data-Maximizing the
Potential of
the National Information Infrastructure
Senior Administration Official
9:45 Long-term Ecological and Environmental Data-The Challenge of
Keeping and Remembering
Susan Stafford, Oregon State University
10:10 Space Observation Data-Looking in and Looking out
Jim Green, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
10:35 Coffee
11:00 Human Health and Global Climate Change
Paul Epstein, Harvard University
11:25 Geographic Information-What Everybody Needs, and Why
David Mark, University of Buffalo
11:50 Molecular and Cellular Bioinformatics-From Molecules to
Biological Functionality
David Lipman, National Center for Biotechnology Information
12:15 p.m. Lunch
1:15 Break-Out Discussion Group Sessions (see topics below)
2:45 Coffee
4:15 Conclusion of Break-Out Sessions
Plenary Session 3-Challenges to Cooperation (continued)
4:30 Integrating Social Science and Natural Science Data
Roberta Miller, Consortium for International Earth Science
Information Network
5:00 Legal Challenges to Data Exchange and Integration
Paul Uhlir, National Research Council
5:30 Adjourn
Wednesday, December 17
Plenary Session 4: How to Cooperate-Examples of Successful Cross-Discipline
Data Exchange and Integration
8:45 a.m. Geographic Information Systems
John Moeller, U.S. Geological Survey and Federal Geographic
Data Committee
9:05 ISO Standard for the Exchange of Product Data
Howard Bloom, National Institute of Standards and Technology
9:25 World Data Centers
Ferris Webster, University of Delaware
9:45 The Earth Observing System
Gregory Hunolt, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
10:05 Coffee
Closing Plenary Session
10:30 Ideas from the Break-Out Sessions
Julian Humphries, University of Kansas
10:50 Next Steps for Working Scientists
Robert Robbins, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
11:20 Next Steps for the Federal Research Community
Senior Official, Office of Science and Technology Policy
11:45 Final Remarks
Goetz Oertel, U.S. National Committee for CODATA
Noon Adjourn
Contributed Papers and Technical Demonstrations
The conference will consist of four types of sessions: plenary invited
lectures; contributed papers (which will be presented as posters);
technical demonstrations and exhibits; and small break-out discussion
groups. Case studies are particularly encouraged. Contributed papers and
demonstrations are being provided on the following topics:
Discipline-specific data exchange activities and requirements
Interdisciplinary data exchange activities and requirements
Federally supported data exchange programs
Definitions of scientific and technical metadata issues
The computer science of data exchange and integration
The impact of the Internet and the World Wide Web on S&T data
exchange and
integration
Future needs for data exchange and integration for scientific and
technical data
The contributed papers and technical demonstrations will play a major role
in the conference by identifying existing activities and approaches that
will provide direction and insight for further activities. All contributed
papers will be considered for publication in the Conference proceedings,
which will be published on the Internet soon after the Conference. The
abstracts for all accepted contributed papers and technical demonstrations
and exhibits will be put on this Web site in October.
For further information about the conference, please contact:
Paul F. Uhlir
Director, U.S. National Committee for CODATA
National Research Council
2101 Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20418
(202) 334-2421 (tel.)
(202) 334-2422 (fax)
codataco@nas.edu
For questions about the conference program, please contact:
John Rumble
Conference Program Chair
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Building 820, Room 113
Gaithersburg, MD 20899
(301) 975-2200 (tel.)
john.rumble@nist.gov
Break-out Discussion Group Sessions
The purpose of the small group discussions, which will be held on the
afternoon of the second day, is to address focused topics within the broad
conference themes. All conference participants are invited to participate
in a discussion group of their choice. Each group will have a designated
chair and rapporteur, who will lead and record the discussion. The results
will be used by the U.S. National Committee for CODATA and the other
conference sponsors for planning follow-on activities. The discussion
groups are expected to examine data exchange and integration issues in the
following discipline and issue areas:
- Biodiversity
- Bioinformatics
- Engineering knowledge systems
- Industrial data
- Earth observations
- Geographic information
- Social sciences
- Intellectual property rights
- Computer science
- Long-term archiving
Further details about these discussion groups will be made available in
November.
Additional Background
By data exchange is meant several things: the transfer of large amounts of
data from one set of software to other software; extracting small amounts
of data from one or more data sources for specific use; and the creation of
a linked or integrated data system with multiple data sources. Other
possibilities exist. Data exchange has two major components: the stream of
bits and bytes that actually represent the data items and fields, and the
contextual meaning of individual data items and fields.
S&T disciplines and applications have begun addressing data exchange
issues, but progress has been slow and difficult for a variety of reasons.
Scientists are often not accustomed to formal standards. Discipline
experts, even though they may be quite knowledgeable in computation and
database management, frequently lack expertise in information modeling and
exchange standards. Metadata are not well defined, complicating the
application of data across diverse scientific areas. As a result,
interdisciplinary data exchange has been difficult to promote and rarely
implemented.
Consider for a moment geographic information. Many applications need such
information: to locate physically the sources of samples, to describe the
range of a phenomenon, or to specify the location of an event, among
others. Today many geographic information systems serve diverse
communities of users, and several efforts to develop standards for
exchanging data among these systems have been proposed. Yet progress to
develop such standards in other areas has been slow. Other types of
scientific data, such as biological nomenclature, chemical and engineering
material identification and temporal data, suffer the same problem. Many
uses for these data exist outside the scientific disciplines that generate
them, yet accepted methods for exchanging these data remain elusive.
In Finding the Forest in the Trees, The Challenge of Combining Diverse
Environmental Data, the U.S. National Committee for CODATA clearly
documented case studies in which data interfacing, defined in that report
as the coordination, combination or integration of data for the purpose of
modeling, correlation, pattern analysis, hypotheses testing, and field
investigation at various scales, was necessary to achieve full value of
research investment. Data interfacing is founded upon the standards and
protocols agreed to by different scientific disciplines to exchange data.
Particular emphasis must be put on the role of metadata in this data
exchange.
About CODATA
The Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) is an
interdisciplinary committee organized under the International Council of
Scientific Unions (ICSU). CODATA is concerned with all types of
quantitative data resulting from experimental measurements or observations
in the physical, biological, geological, and astronomical sciences.
Particular emphasis is given to data management problems common to
different scientific disciplines and to data used outside the field in
which they were generated. The general objectives are the improvement of
the quality and accessibility of data, as well as the methods by which data
are acquired, managed, and analyzed; the facilitation of international
cooperation among those collecting, organizing, and using data; and the
promotion of an increased awareness in the scientific and technical
community of the importance of these activities.
The U.S. National Committee for CODATA is organized by the National
Research Council to administer activities within the United States related
to CODATA. The Committee is funded by several federal agencies. Over the
past decade, the Committee has completed several studies that have
identified and analyzed issues related to maximizing the availability and
usability of scientific and technical data. This national conference
builds upon those studies and is intended to spur further progress and
cooperation in data exchange and integration.
Local Information
Location
The conference will be held at the Natcher Conference Center (Building 45)
on the NIH Campus, 45 Center Drive (off of Wisconsin Avenue/Rockville
Pike), Bethesda, Maryland. 301-496-9966. There is a cafeteria at the
Natcher Center which is open for breakfast and lunch. The Natcher Center
is accessible for the physically challenged.
Hotel Accommodations
A block of rooms has been made available for conference attendees at the
Hyatt Regency Hotel, 1 Bethesda Metro Center, Bethesda, MD, at the rates of
$110.71 for single occupancy, $135.71 for double occupancy, plus 12% tax.
Attendees are responsible for their own expenses while attending the
conference and for making their own hotel and other reservations. If you
wish to take advantage of the reduced rate at the Hyatt for conference
attendees, call the hotel at 301-657-1234 or 800-233-1234 and tell the
clerk you are attending the Scientific and Technical Data Exchange and
Integration meeting. Hotel reservations must be made before November 13,
1997 in order to assure the special room rate.
The Hyatt Regency is located next to the Bethesda Metro (subway) station,
which can be used from National Airport and to the Natcher Center (see
Metro directions below). The hotel is at the intersection of Wisconsin
Avenue and Old Georgetown Road, 2.5 miles inside the Capital Beltway
(I-95/I-495).
Check-in time at the Hyatt is 3:00 pm, and luggage storage is available for
guests arriving prior to check in. Check-out time is 12:00 noon.
Local Transportation and Parking
The Natcher Center and NIH have extremely limited parking, and parking
spaces are not guaranteed. It is highly recommended for attendees to use
the Metro or car pool. Cars parked in 3-hour spaces in front of the
Natcher Center will be ticketed after 3 hours. Handicapped-tagged cars can
be accommodated with "day of event" notice by request directly to the
conference center business office.
Driving Directions
Interstate 495 Westbound: Take exit 33B (south, Connecticut Avenue). At 2nd
traffic light, turn right onto Jones Bridge Road and proceed 2 more traffic
lights to the intersection of Rockville Pike. Travel through the
intersection onto Center Drive, make 3rd left and follow signs to parking
lot 41B.
Interstate 495 Eastbound: Take exit 34B (south, Bethesda/Wisconsin Avenue).
Proceed 2 miles south on Rockville Pike. At 5th traffic light, turn right
onto Center Drive, make 3rd left and follow signs to parking lot 41B.
Wisconsin Avenue, from the District of Columbia: Proceed north from the
District to 9000 Rockville Pike (Wisconsin Avenue). Turn left onto Center
Drive (1st traffic light after Ramada Inn). Make 3rd left and follow signs
to parking lot 41B.
Metro