The Research Data Alliance (RDA) seeks to build the social and technical bridges that enable open sharing and reuse of data, so as to address cross-border and cross-disciplinary challenges faced by researchers. This September, the RDA will be hosting its Fourth Plenary Meeting in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Ahead of the event, iSGTW spoke to Gary Berg-Cross, general secretary of the Spatial Ontology Community of Practice and a member of the US advisory committee for RDA. Berg-Cross is also co-chair of the RDA working group on data foundation and terminology. 

How do working groups such as your own enable RDA to achieve its goals?

The working and interest groups are really the heart of the Research Data Alliance and their results will be key to its success. Interest groups are essentially about problem areas people are encountering and working groups are about finding solutions related to particular topics within an 18-month period. The work done by these groups reflects the overall goal of the RDA, which is to achieve open access to and reuse of research data without barriers.

By the time of the plenary meeting in Amsterdam, the first RDA working groups will have been around for roughly 18 months. As such, several of the initial working groups — including the one I co-chair — will be ready to present their products. So, it’s an exciting time and a next step for the RDA.

The RDA Fourth Plenary Meeting will take place from September 22 to 24 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Find out more about the event here.

Andrew Purcell is the editor of iSGTW and is based at CERN, near Geneva. This article originally appeared in iSGTW on August 13, 2014. Read the full article: Laying the Foundations for Better Sharing of Research Data