Rules of Engagement

This document is meant to align expectations between workshop organizers, participants and observers.

Workshop objective, format and success criteria The objective for the participants is to get their data sets to comply with the most critical FAIR data principle - adding machine actionable metadata to their data. The workshop focuses on practical aspects of this principle, taught mainly through exercises.

Therefore, the workshop is

  • About metadata and not data.
  • Condensed (2 x ½ day) and has limited time for discussions and theory.
  • Focused almost exclusively on practical work.
  • For anyone who knows how to use a computer, Excel, Slack and browse the Internet.

The success criteria are the publication of

  • At least one controlled vocabulary containing at least one controlled term.
  • At least one instance of a machine-actionable metadata record.

Participants
are expected to work actively, dedicated and focused on these objectives. These entail:

  • Doing homework (ca. ½ day) prior to the workshop.
  • Attending the workshop with all accounts set up, and operational computers (There will be no time to fix technical issues during the workshop).
  • Attending the pre-workshop meeting in order to be the most efficient during the time in the workshop.
  • Doing homework (ca. ½ day) in between the 2 workshop days.
  • Posing mainly practical questions and refrain from debating conceptual, scientific and technology choices (opinions on these matters are welcome in the dedicated Slack channel or the Github repository).
  • During the workshop the research group decides on one data champion, who will carry on the work after completion.

Organizers
will be available for answering questions in Slack (Zoom may be used if it expedites the process) during normal work hours:

  • Before the workshop.
  • During the workshop.
  • Between the workshop days.
  • Up to one month after the workshop.

The Slack channel will only retain messages one month.

Observers
are allowed to join the online workshop, however only in the capacity of being passive observers and only if they comply with the rules detailed below.

For this reason participants are asked to choose datasets for exercises that are ideally already public or there are no restrictions in presenting them in public (e.g. no data under GDPR restrictions or unpublished research data).

Observers are not allowed into the Slack channel.

The rules for Observers during the workshop are:

  • Observers must have their microphone and video turned off at all times.
  • Observers must not write comments in the Zoom chat, or in any other way disturb the proceedings.
  • Questions, comments and suggestions by observers are welcome, however, only through e-mail correspondence with the DeIC organisers.
  • Full name and affiliation must be visible when signed in to the videoconferencing (e.g. Bob Bobson, UCLA).
  • Observers can enter and leave the Zoom room as they like, but must respect the above rules.