Building the Prototype Open Knowledge Network (Proto-OKN) | NSF – National Science Foundation

Abstract:  This program supports the creation of a prototype Open Knowledge Network — an interconnected network of knowledge graphs supporting a very broad range of application domains. Open access to shared information is essential for the development and evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-powered solutions needed to address the complex challenges facing the nation and the world. Knowledge graphs, which represent relationships among real-world entities, provide a powerful approach for organizing, representing, integrating, reusing, and accessing data from multiple structured and unstructured sources using ontologies and ontology alignment. Currently, private-sector investments in knowledge graphs power numerous consumer applications including web search, e-commerce, banking, drug discovery, advertising, etc. Undertaking a similar but inclusive, open, and community-driven effort and making use of publicly available data holds the potential to create a platform that would empower government and non-government users — fueling evidence-based policymaking, continued strong economic growth, game-changing scientific breakthroughs, while addressing complex societal challenges from climate change to social equity.

 

Engage on NSF’s Public Access Policy

“The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy this past August issued a memo directing the nation’s major, science-funding agencies, including NSF, to ensure free, immediate, and equitable access to the products of federally-supported research. The required updates to the policy will have direct and lasting impacts on NSF internal and external stakeholders, including researchers, research institutions, scholarly societies, research libraries and the universities they support, and publishers. NSF’s Working Group on Public Access is committed to ensuring that the policy it recommends has been informed by active stakeholder engagement.  This is the only way that NSF’s updated public access policy can be equitable, sustainable and best serve NSF’s broad and diverse community.  

To that end, we will hold a virtual information and listening session at 2:00 PM EST on November 30, 2022. 

 

Participants will be briefed on the history and driving principles of NSF’s public access policy. More importantly, this webinar will serve as a forum for NSF to hear and appreciate what’s on the minds of our stakeholders, and to discuss opportunities and challenges surrounding the update of NSF’s open access policy.”

CU Boulder receives collaborative national grant for open science project | University Libraries | University of Colorado Boulder

“This multi-year research project aspires to establish community-informed recommendations on how to assign persistent identifiers like Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) and Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs) to research facilities and instrumentation. CU Boulder is also working with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and Florida State University on the project to strengthen coordination among researchers in order to advance FAIR data principles and open science practices. 

The “Findable Accessible Interoperable Reusable (FAIR) Open Science Facilities and Instruments project is one of 10 projects funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) as part of its Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable, Open Science Research Coordination Networks (FAIROS RCN) program. FAIR is a set of international principles that focus on making scientific research more open and transparent.

Johnson said these projects are part of a nationwide attempt to establish norms and best practices to strengthen coordination among researchers to advance fair data principles and open science practices. …”

OPEN KNOWLEDGE NETWORK ROADMAP: POWERING THE NEXT DATA REVOLUTION

“Open access to shared information is essential for the development and evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-powered solutions needed to address the complex challenges facing the nation and the world. The Open Knowledge Network (OKN), an interconnected network of knowledge graphs, would provide an essential public-data infrastructure for enabling an AI-driven future. It would facilitate the integration of diverse data needed to develop solutions to drive continued strong economic growth, expand opportunities, and address complex problems from climate change to social equity. The OKN Roadmap describes the key characteristics of the OKN and essential considerations in taking the effort forward in an effective and sustainable manner….”

NSF releases Open Knowledge Network Roadmap report

“The U.S. National Science Foundation today published the Open Knowledge Network Roadmap – Powering the next data revolution report that outlines a strategy for establishing an open and accessible national resource to power 21st century data science and next-generation artificial intelligence. Establishing such a knowledge infrastructure would integrate the diverse data needed to sustain strong economic growth, expand opportunities to engage in data analysis, and address complex national challenges such as climate change, misinformation, disruptions from pandemics, economic equity and diversity….”

ARL Applauds NSF Open Science Investment – Association of Research Libraries

“The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) commends the ongoing commitment of the US National Science Foundation (NSF) to open science. NSF today announced awards for 10 new projects focused on building and enhancing coordination among researchers and other stakeholders to advance FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable) data principles and open-science practices.

The inaugural awards in NSF’s Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable, Open Science Research Coordination Networks (FAIROS RCN) program represent a pooled investment of over $12.5 million in open science from all directorates comprising NSF. This program is particularly unique given that the 10 projects are composed of 28 distinct NSF awards (detailed below) representing many organizations and institutions in the United States seeking to advance open-science efforts….”

NSF Grant for New STEM-focused Commons | Platypus – the Humanities Commons Blog

by Kathleen Fitzpatrick

The Commons team is delighted to have been awarded one of the inaugural FAIROS RCN grants from the NSF, in order to establish DBER+ Commons. That’s a big pile of acronyms, so here’s a breakdown: the NSF is of course the National Science Foundation, one of the most important federal funding bodies in the United States, and a new funder for us. The FAIROS RCN grant program was launched this year by the NSF in order to invest in Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable Open Science (FAIROS) by supporting the formation and development of Research Coordination Networks (RCN) dedicated to those principles.

We have teamed up with a group of amazing folks at Michigan State University who are working across science, technology, engineering, math, and more traditional NSF fields, all of whom are focused on discipline-based education research (DBER) as well as other engaged education research methodologies (the +). Our goal for this project is to bring them together with their national and international collaborators in STEM education to create DBER+ Commons, which will use — and crucially, expand — the affordances of the HCommons network and promote FAIR and CARE (Collective Benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, Ethics) practices, principles, and guidelines in undergraduate, postbaccalaureate, graduate, and postdoctoral science education research activities.

 

ARL and Six Universities Awarded National Science Foundation Grant to Study Discipline-Specific Models and Costs for Public Access to Research Data – Association of Research Libraries

“The US National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and six universities involved in the Data Curation Network a $297,019 grant to conduct research, develop models, and collect costing information for public access to research data across five disciplinary areas. The project, Completing the Life Cycle: Developing Evidence-Based Models of Research Data Sharing, will start in August 2021….

This research seeks to answer the following questions:

Where are funded researchers across these institutions making their data publicly accessible and what is the quality of the metadata?
How are researchers making decisions about why and how to share research data?
What is the cost to the institution to implement the federally mandated public access to research data policy? …”

ARL Welcomes Researcher-First Policies in Bills to Reauthorize US National Science Foundation – Association of Research Libraries

“On behalf of the leaders of 125 major research libraries, the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is pleased to see that the US House of Representatives included the following policies in the National Science Foundation (NSF) for the Future Act (H.R. 2225), which center researchers and create public value by promoting the availability of publicly funded research:

Criteria for trusted open repositories to be used by federally funded researchers sharing data, software, and code. According to the House bill, the criteria would be developed with input from the scientific community. Research libraries look forward to partnering with NSF and the scientific community to develop these criteria.
Data management plans to facilitate public access to NSF-funded research products, including data, software, and code….

We strongly support public access to publications resulting from NSF-funded research with zero embargo, and we are heartened to see language in the Senate-passed US Innovation and Competition Act (S. 1260) requiring the publication of federally funded research data within 12 months, “preferably sooner.” Making research outputs publicly available to the widest possible audience in the timeliest manner possible, and machine-accessible for computation, is critical for developing scientific insights and solutions for public health, climate, technological advancement, and more….”

Leveraging Data Communities to Advance Open Science | Ithaka S+R

“We are excited to announce that Ithaka S+R has been awarded grant funding from the National Science Foundation to support the development of infrastructures for data sharing within data communities in collaboration with the Data Curation Network.  “Leveraging Data Communities to Advance Open Science,” will bring together scientists and information technology professionals for focused discussions about initiating and sustaining data communities….”

Assessment, Usability, and Sociocultural Impacts of DataONE | International Journal of Digital Curation

Abstract:  DataONE, funded from 2009-2019 by the U.S. National Science Foundation, is an early example of a large-scale project that built both a cyberinfrastructure and culture of data discovery, sharing, and reuse. DataONE used a Working Group model, where a diverse group of participants collaborated on targeted research and development activities to achieve broader project goals. This article summarizes the work carried out by two of DataONE’s working groups: Usability & Assessment (2009-2019) and Sociocultural Issues (2009-2014). The activities of these working groups provide a unique longitudinal look at how scientists, librarians, and other key stakeholders engaged in convergence research to identify and analyze practices around research data management through the development of boundary objects, an iterative assessment program, and reflection. Members of the working groups disseminated their findings widely in papers, presentations, and datasets, reaching international audiences through publications in 25 different journals and presentations to over 5,000 people at interdisciplinary venues. The working groups helped inform the DataONE cyberinfrastructure and influenced the evolving data management landscape. By studying working groups over time, the paper also presents lessons learned about the working group model for global large-scale projects that bring together participants from multiple disciplines and communities in convergence research.

 

COVID-19 Global Research Registry for Public Health and Social Sciences

“Sharing your information will help:

Highlight novel public health and social science research initiated in response to COVID-19
Expand opportunities for research collaboration and reduce duplication of effort
Identify unmet research needs
Create possibilities to share and publish research instruments, data collection and ethics protocols, and data
Set a comprehensive social science research agenda….”