CFP: Research Data Management Implementations Workshop funded by NSF (Mar. 13-14, 2013)

The notice below came from several email lists including the Digital Library Federation (DLF-Announce) email list:


Research Data Management Implementations Workshop funded by the National Science Foundation
March 13 – 14, 2013
Westin Arlington Gateway, Arlington VA
We are pleased to announce the NSF funded workshop on “Research Data Management Implementations” (RDMI).
The objective of this workshop is to bring together research computing communities including researchers, campus information technology (IT) leaders, library/archive specialists, and leading experts in data management to discuss actual implementation architectures as they relate to discipline-specific workflows and deployments. This workshop will build on the results of the NSF funded Research Data Lifecycle Management Workshop held at Princeton University in 2011. RDMI will shift focus to implementations of solutions and encourage open discussion of available strategies for data management in specific fields based on actual case studies.
The workshop is held in conjunction with the Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation (CASC) Spring Meeting, held March 13-15, 2013.
We now seek applications for participation and submissions of position papers for the workshop. In order to apply, please go to https://rdmi.uchicago.edu/ and follow the left hand navigation to register to attend the workshop in Arlington or via live webcast. The deadline for applications and paper submissions is February 20, 2013, but we will accept applications and papers on a rolling basis. There is no cost to register for this workshop. We also encourage reserving hotel rooms at the conference hotel as soon as possible, as there are a limited number of rooms, with a February 6th deadline to reserve at conference rates.
Important Dates:

  • Paper submission and registration deadline: February 20, 2013 (but accepted and reviewed on a rolling basis)
  • Deadline to receive discounted hotel room rate: February 6, 2013
  • Workshop dates: March 13-14, 2013

Workshop Description:
The deluge of data generated from experiments, observations and simulations creates many challenges for researchers. Adequate data management implementations are becoming critical due to the need to not only collect and analyze large volumes of raw data, but also to store and curate that data in ways that facilitate its retrieval and analysis in future studies. As data collections grow in size and complexity, so too does the computing infrastructure needed to support them. Technologies used to create and study data collections are also evolving rapidly. Even when provided with best practices, researchers typically lack the expertise and the hardware and software infrastructure required to implement these solutions. Further complicating the data management process is the fact that these processes often depend on domain specific workflows. Establishing and efficiently executing these data management processes can demand substantial time and resources that most researchers do not have or cannot easily acquire. Researchers need turn-key (but customizable) solutions and community accepted practices to solve their data management problems.
This workshop will bring together research computing communities and leading experts in data management to discuss actual implementation architectures as they relate to discipline-specific workflows and deployments. We will invite submission of position and experience papers that describe implementations of discipline-based data management infrastructure and services, and the ways in which those solutions leverage resources within and outside their institutions. The workshop will also engage participants in a discussion of how a coordinated effort among research computing centers may accelerate the implementation of effective research data management workflows, and contribute to national efforts and initiatives.
On-site participation will be limited to approximately seventy-five leaders. In addition, video-conferencing will be used to reach a much broader range of off-site participants. We hope to engage a diverse population of researchers and professionals involved in research data lifecycle management to represent varying perspectives and differing institutions in the conversation.
We strongly encourage submission of position papers. The papers will help to gather input from a broad community to seed the conversations at the workshop. Position papers should be 2-5 pages, and can be submitted as described on the registration website any time from now through February 20, 2013 at 5pmCST.
This NSF funded workshop is in collaboration between the Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation (CASC), and will be hosted at the Westin Arlington Gateway Hotel in Arlington, VA Wednesday, March 13 – Thursday, March 14, 2013. The workshop will include a reception and dinner at the Westin Hotel on Wednesday, March 13th at 6:30pmEST. The findings of the workshop will be described in a report made available following the workshop.
Please feel free to contact the organizing committee by email if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions at rdmi@rcc.uchicago.edu.
Kind regards,
RDMI Organizing Committee
Hakizumwami Birali Runesha – Chair
Director of Research Computing, The University of Chicago
Rajendra (Raj) Bose
Manager, Research Computing Services, Columbia University
Julio Facelli
Professor and Interim Chair of Biomedical Informatics, Director Center for High Performance Computing, The University of Utah
Ian Foster
Arthur Holly Compton Distinguished Service Professor: Department of Computer Science; Director: Computation Institute; Distinguished Fellow: MCS Division, Argonne, The University of Chicago
Thomas Furlani
Director Center for Computational Research, Interim Associate Vice President for Information Technology, University of Buffalo
Ruth Marinshaw
Chief Technology Officer – Research Computing, Stanford University