Users interested in geoinformation now have a variety of available digital data sources. Geodata are often provided in the form of interactive maps or within geoportals. However, finding the information you are looking for often causes practical problems. The question arises as to what requirements arise for applications with many thematic levels of information with regard to the information search, and what specific functions can be provided to make the search easier. This online workshop gives participants the opportunity to exchange ideas.

The workshop takes place on 15 November 2023 between 16:00 - 18:00 h and will be held in German, with possibilities for breakout sessions in English.

Auriol Degbelo (TU Dresden)

Don’t miss an interesting event in Research Data Management or Earth System Science! 

 A comprehensive list of upcoming Conferences, Symposia, Workshops, Coffee-talks and much more in Germany as well as internationally could be found on the NFDI4Earth webpage.  

Something is missing? Please send us all relevant information to nfdi4earth-news@tu-dresden.de, and we will be happy to share it!

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Save the Date of the next NFDI4Earth Plenary‍, 21 - 24 May 2024

Please don't forget: our next plenary will take place again in the week after Pentecost, 21 - 24 May 2024, at the Deutsche Hygienemuseum Dresden!‍

Participate in NFDI4Earth

Education & Training – Call for NFDI4Earth Educational Pilots‍‍

Join the NFDI4Earth Academy - Your Training Network to bridge Earth System and Data Science!

• Do you already work - or do you want to work at the interface of Earth System and Data Science?
• Are you interested in interdisciplinary research and wish to network with other early career scientists for this purpose?
• Are you a doctoral or postdoctoral researcher at a German university or non-university research institution?

… THEN BECOME A NFDI4EARTH ACADEMY FELLOW! OUR 2nd CALL IS NOW OPEN!

The NFDI4Earth Academy is a network of early career scientists interested in bridging Earth System and Data Sciences across institutional borders.

The Academy covers specialized training courses and facilitating collaborations within the NFDI4Earth community with access to all NFDI4Earth innovations and services. With the two-year Academy program, we offer an open science and learning environment. Academy fellows can advance their current research projects by exploring and integrating new methods and connecting with like-minded scientists in an agile, bottom-up, and peer-mentored community.

We support young scientists in developing skills and mindset for open and data-driven science across disciplinary boundaries. The program combines various virtual, hybrid, and in-person events.

Stay tuned and apply!

Effi-Laura Drews (FZ Jülich & Geoverbund ABC/J), Jonas Kuppler (GFZ Potsdam & Geo.X),

Kristin Sauerland (MARUM & Deutsche Allianz Meeresforschung),

Hildegard Gödde (GFZ Potsdam & Geo.X),

Konstantin Ntageretzis (FZ Jülich & Geoverbund ABC/J),

Gauvain Wiemer (Deutsche Allianz Meeresforschung)

New Interest Group on Metadata Standards for Geochemical Data‍

An NFDI4Earth Interest Group (IG) is a temporary or permanent forum for an information community or stakeholder group to e.g. identify, discuss and communicate requirements for the consortium.

The primary objective of the IG 'Metadata Standards for Geochemical Data' is to channel national and international efforts toward the effective reuse of existing data from diverse research domains in geochemistry to forge novel data products. Despite the substantial advancements in analytical methods within geoscience research in the past two decades, the level of documentation for the reuse of data and metadata on geological samples and materials has not consistently accompanied these efforts. The lack of documentation is particularly pronounced due to the wide range of methods used.

Because of the large amounts of data and great diversity in methods today, establishing mutual standards for various types of geochemical data has become pivotal for creating a robust foundation for advancing geochemical research. To address this need, we set up several working groups that will work toward formulating ontologies and metadata tailored to distinct areas of geochemistry. This also includes work on developing tools designed to generate adaptable metadata software, ensuring that metadata is rich in content and standardized for seamless cross-disciplinary utilization.

If you are interested in joining this IG or if you have any additional questions, please contact Elfrun Lehmann or Harry Becker (elfrun.lehmann@fu-berlin.de or hbecker@zedat.fu-berlin.de).

Further details about the IG can be found here. Additionally, you can subscribe to the mailing list for regular updates and communication.

Elfrun Lehmann (Freie Universität Berlin)

Spot on... NFDI4Earth

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Welcome to our new Incubators and upcoming Kick-off Meeting!

The Incubator Lab of the NFDI4Earth fosters novel data science developments for Earth System Science in dedicated, focused projects. Its objective is to steer the exploration of new, potentially relevant building blocks to be included in NFDI4Earth and related NFDIs.

We are looking forward to the second batch of incubators starting soon. The reviewers' ranking led to the final selection of the following five projects which will be implemented in 2023/24 - in this context, we welcome the TU Braunschweig as a new partner of the NFDI4Earth.

• Web-based, User-driven Climate Impact Data Extraction (PIK Potsdam) - aims to build an innovative web-based service that allows users to extract, process and download subsets of NetCDF3 data from the ISIMIP Repository.
• Bucket Sampling for Earth System Data Cubes (ScaDS.AI – Leipzig University) - will introduce and implement a new bucket sampling strategy (an open-source software) that accounts for the special characteristics of geospatial data.
• Steam ScrAIber (Leibniz University Hannover) - propose the use of Large Language Model assistance systems combined with a secure environment where automatic code can be executed directly, allowing users to reduce the required programming skills.
• Prompt accessed GeoQAmap for Earth Data (TU München) - aims to develop a system that enables users to access ESS-related data through natural language queries, facilitates integrated access and reduces the complexity of querying certain geo-entities.

• Digitization of analogue Records in Time - DO IT! (TU Braunschweig) - offers to develop an easy applicable smartphone application for analogue records digitization, applicable to all kind of analogue data and hence useful for numerous scientific fields.

If you want to get to know our new incubators, join the public kick-off meeting with short presentations of the projects on 9 November 2023 between 11:30 - 12:30 h.

Steffen Busch (Leibniz Universität Hannover)

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 Welcome to the second cohort of Earth System Science Pilots!

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The development of the NFDI4Earth is driven by the researchers’ needs and requirements for research data management according to the FAIR principles. NFDI4Earth uses Earth System Science Pilots to engage the community, which run typically for one year and are collected from an open call.

After a thorough revision of 29 submissions, we are happy to present the following seven projects selected for the second cohort of the NFDI4Earth pilots covering various disciplines of Earth System Sciences and starting between September 2023 and January 2024:

• BPMN4Earth (GFZ Potsdam) - focuses on facilitating comprehensive and reproducible laboratory workflows through metadata-enriched workflow descriptions.
• CAPICE (AWI Bremerhaven) - aims to optimize simulations on distributed HPC systems for efficient modeling of ice sheet dynamics.
• Connecting Rivers and Lakes FAIRly (IGB Berlin) - combines freshwater data from lakes and rivers in an interactive online platform for integrated ecological analysis (http://geofresh.org/).
  
• GeoComBi (Universität Bielefeld) - seeks to enhance video and image annotation workflows by incorporating geospatial context information display (https://biigle.de/).
  
• Graph based visual Search Engine (DLR Braunschweig) - creats a visualization-centric interface, facilitating efficient searches across datasets of different data providers.
• Propagating complex Uncertainties in Data Cubes (Universität Tübingen) - fosters the integration of measurements and methods dealing with uncertainties of paleoclimatic proxy data into a data cube architecture.
• SoilPulse (TU Bergakademie Freiberg) - focuses on developing a metadata generator tool for soil-process data, including automated tests for data interoperability and reusability.

All new pilots were presented at a kick-off meeting mid of October. An overview of the proposals as well as first general information can be accessed on the NFDI4Earth website and are updated regularly.

Veronika Grupp (Universität Leipzig)

Survey on Incentives for FAIR and Open Data Practices

To find out more about *Incentives for FAIR and open data practices* (What are these practices?), the NFDI4Earth invites you to participate in an online survey. We like to find out which FAIR and open data practices are already in use and which incentives should be created or strengthened to increase uptake of FAIR and open data practices. The survey is part of the work in the measure "Towards a Cultural Change in Earth System Sciences Research Data Management" of the NFDI-Consortium 4Earth.

Participate in the online survey!

The survey addresses researchers, but also students, in the German Earth System Science (ESS) community. It will take approximately ten min to answer this survey and will run until 30 November 2023.

We would like to ask you to also forward the survey to your colleagues and students!
 

If you are interested in the results of this survey, you may get a notification when the results of this survey are published. For that purpose, you can leave your e-mail address at the end of the online survey.

For questions or comments, you may contact Andreas Hübner at andreas.huebner@fu-berlin.de.

Andreas Hübner ‍(FU Berlin)

NFDI4Earth Outcomes

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The Living Handbook is (almost) ready ... and looking forward to more Contributions!

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The Living Handbook is now welcoming articles. Be among the first authors of the NFDI4Earth Living Handbook and submit your article today!

NFDI4Earth Project Outcomes and Publications

The NFDI4Earth project realizes numerous project outcomes in forms of services, documents and publications. In upcoming newsletters, this section will list links to the new publications and new services since the previous newsletter.

Visit NFDI4Earth webpage to find all project outcomes, e.g., project deliverables and public milestone documentations.

Go to the NFDI4Earth Zenodo Community to find further documents, such as reports, white papers, datasets, posters, and presentations, from all task areas, including pilots and incubators. Contributions are welcome! Please note the curation guidelines on the community page.

Daniel Nüst (TU Dresden)

NFDI4Earth @ CoRDI 2023

The 1st Conference on Research Data Infrastructure (CoRDI 2023) took place between 12 and 14 September 2023 in Karlsruhe. During the conference, the NFDI4Earth team introduced the concepts and the first results of the harmonization efforts to Improve Research Data Management in the Earth System Sciences, presented as a Poster. NFDI4Earth members contributed to Multidisciplinary Use Cases Within NFDI and Steps Towards a Cultural Change for Sharing Research Data. Besides four contributions, the NFDI4Earth representatives took the opportunity to initiate and deepen collaborations across the broad field of research data management and especially with other NFDI consortia.

The NFDI4Earth team gathered between exciting conversations and interesting talks at the dense CoRDI 2023 conference for a quick picture.

Valentina Protopopova-Kakar (GFZ Potsdam)
Daniel Nüst (TU Dresden)

Welcome to NFDI4Earth

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The NFDI4Earth was established in a comprehensive bottom-up process. Large parts of the German Earth System Science community came to shape its structure. At the moment, the NFDI4Earth consortium consists of 61 partner institutions and is open to your participation.

According to this, we are pleased to welcome our latest partner institutions: the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and the Universität Bielefeld. If your institution shares our view and wants to become an active part of the initiative, you are most welcome to join the big NFDI4Earth family.

For further information, please contact nfdi4earth-info@groups.tu-dresden.de.

Valentina Protopopova-Kakar (GFZ Potsdam) &

the NFDI4Earth Coordination Team (TU Dresden)

From mid-2023, RUB has joined the NFDI4Earth Consortium and will bring their expertise in research and teaching focused on spatio-temporal modelling of metropolitan transformation, interdisciplinary integration of geospatial data, and analysis of (near-real-time) geospatial information.

The Geomatics Research Group of the RUB will develop an Educational Pilot “The future is urban, the data is smart – Analysis of urban transformation processes with volunteered geographic information, social media geographic information and EO data”, that will teach modern methods for accessing open geodata and the extraction of thematic information from volunteered geographic information, social media geographic information and earth observation data with Python. The learners will be trained to implement the planning and creation of individual research projects according to their needs. The implementation of Moodle and dissemination via Open RUB is also envisaged.

Andreas Rienow (Ruhr University Bochum)

Bielefeld University was founded in 1969 with an explicit research mission and high standards for the quality of research-oriented teaching. With approximately 24,500 students, it now comprises 14 faculties. As a comprehensive university, it offers a differentiated range of subjects in the humanities, natural and technical sciences, and medicine. The Faculty of Technology at Bielefeld University has a long tradition in organizing interdisciplinary education and research.

In September 2023, the Bielefeld University has joined the NFDI4Earth Consortium to contribute their expertise in research and teaching focused on the analysis of large collections of visual data, i.e. digital photos and video from remote sensing. The Biodata Mining Group at Bielefeld University, led by Prof. Tim Nattkemper, works on the development of new methodologies to harvest a large collection of visual data with a special focus on machine learning approaches. To support domain experts in a manual annotation of the visual data, the group has developed BIIGLE, a web-based software for image and video annotation that enables collaborative sharing, browsing and annotation of large datasets. BIIGLE offers tools for manual and computer-assisted annotation, quality control and the collaboration of custom taxonomies to describe objects. BIIGLE is freely available and can be installed in cloud environments, a local network or on mobile platforms during research expeditions. The public instance is free for non-commercial use.

In the new NFDI4Earth pilot project GeoComBi (Geospatial context enriched image annotation in BIIGLE 2.0) the BIIGLE software will be extended by new interactive visualization functionalities enabling the users to integrate geographical context in their analysis.

Tim Nattkemper (Universität Bielefeld)

News from the Research Data Management & Earth System Science Communities

The German Marine Data Portal - collaborative Management and Development

Together, the “Underway”-Data project and the MareHub initiative form the basis of a coordinated data management infrastructure to support German marine science and international cooperation. The data and infrastructure of these joint efforts contribute to the NFDI and EOSC.

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The Helmholtz Association's Research Field Earth and Environment and the German Marine Research Alliance (DAM) have joined forces to connect the distributed data infrastructures of their members and partners for open access to FAIR research data and information from the marine field. The development of an integrated research data infrastructure and the digitization processes around their observation platforms into a networked, shared information infrastructure has been recognized as essential for advancing science, making political and societal decisions, and shaping our future in times of climate change and loss of species.

The overarching goal of the activities is to ensure the connectivity of marine and Earth system science data to national, European and international structures. The German Marine Data Portal is the central open data access point for German marine research.

Stephan Frickenhaus (AWI Bremerhaven)
Frank Oliver Glöckner (AWI Bremerhaven & MARUM/PANGAEA)
Ulrike Kleeberg (hereon Geesthaacht)
Sören Lorenz (GEOMAR Kiel)
Gauvain Wiemer (Deutsche Allianz Meeresforschung)

International News

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FAIR IMPACT Second Open Call for Mentoring Support on FAIR implementation action plan

FAIR-IMPACT aims to help candidates to self-assess their current FAIR-enabling practices and to develop FAIR implementation action plans. A three Open Calls are made to the participates in National Level Initiatives, Research Performing Organizations and Repositories and Data Service Providers.

Applications will be accepted until 1 November 2023.

More details and videos to the online workshops with detailed information about the application process can be found here.

Valentina Protopopova-Kakar (GFZ Potsdam)

Version 4.0 of the re3data Metadata Schema is realized

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Detailed and accurate descriptions of the repositories are at the core of the re3data registry. Therefore, the latest 4.0 re3data Metadata Schema is created based on the repository community's feedback on its development and needs. This ensures that the Schema can be expanded and adapted as the repositories landscape evolves. The Metadata Schema provides some new properties as related repository, funding information and content type.

More information can be found here.

 
Valentina Protopopova-Kakar (GFZ Potsdam)