Forms of RDA Outputs
RDA Outputs are the technical and social infrastructure solutions developed by RDA Working Groups or Interest Groups that enable data sharing, exchange, and interoperability. These Outputs have an important impact in two areas: solving problems, and incorporation and/or adoption in infrastructure environments by individuals, projects, and organizations. As an organization, RDA's goal is to expand awareness and adoption of these Outputs, and hence their impact, within all regions of the world.
RDA Outputs have the following classifications:
- RDA Recommendations - produced by RDA WGs
- Supporting Outputs - produced by any RDA group
- Other Outputs - produced by any RDA group
These are described in more detail on the Outputs and Recommendations page.
RDA Recommendations
RDA Recommendations are the official, endorsed results of RDA and considered our “flagship” Outputs. At the end of each Working Group (WG) lifecycle, the WG itself is responsible for delivering the Secretariat concrete results of its efforts in the form of specific tools, code, best practices, standards, etc. that will promote data sharing and exchange and increase data-driven innovation, also known as a Recommendation. After a successful review process, a Recommendation will be recognised and endorsed by the RDA.
To ensure the continued right to share, use and build upon the work produced by the RDA community through its various Groups, the RDA rightfully applies the following Licensing information: "All RDA Recommendations are under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) and all authors, generators, contributors and users of RDA Recommendations are governed by these licensing regulations”.
The requirements and review process for Recommendations are described below, and also described in the Briefing Paper: Process for Endorsing RDA Recommendations on the Outputs Endorsement page.
Recommendation Submission Requirements
The WG should provide the Recommendation to the Secretariat in a non-proprietary, open-file and electronic format, together with the following information:
- The draft Recommendation
- A short description / abstract
- A brief impact statement (see the pages of Endorsed Recommendations for examples, or Secretariat can provide examples).
-
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (An explanation of how the Recommendations contribute to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). See here for a list of the 17 goals and please specify which goals, if any, are relevant to the Group’s Recommendations.)
- Authorship information. Please note that we usually assume that the WG has been a contributor to the Recommendation, in addition to the named authors. However, you can also nominate the WG as the sole author of the Recommendation.
- Licensing information: All RDA Recommendations are under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) and all authors, generators, contributors and users of RDA Recommendations are governed by these licensing regulations.
- Further metadata: version, publication date, other metadata that you would like to provide.
- Maintenance and retirement plan (e.g.: the maintenance going forward will be taken over by an Interest Group, maintenance will be adopted by an external organization, etc.)
- The names of two adopters who are willing to provide some information about the adoption of the Recommendation to the RDA Secretariat (the names can be provided during the community review period - see below).
If you have any questions about what to provide, please contact enquiries[at]rd-alliance.org.
Once all Recommendation submission requirements have been received from the WG, The Secretariat will mint a DOI for the Recommendation, based on the information you provide, and will start the endorsement process, which starts with a 1-month community review period for the Recommendation. During this period, we ask the co-chairs to monitor and respond to any comments made by the community.
Recommendation Endorsement Process
- Community Review: The Secretariat opens the Recommendation for review by the RDA community by placing it in the RfC box on the home page. As with WG Case Statements and IG Charters, the duration of the community review phase is 1 month. The underlying question for the community is, "Does this output help further the RDA mission, and is it consistent with the principles of RDA?".
- Organisational Assembly (OA) Commentary: In parallel with the Community Review, the OA is invited to provide an expert commentary on the adoptability of the Recommendation, and whether this Recommendation furthers the RDA mission. Please note that there is no obligation on the OA to provide commentary.
- Adoption report: Secretariat will ask the group chairs to provide contact details for two adopters of the Recommendation. A Secretariat member will then ask the adopters the following questions about their adoption experience:
- What is the level of adoption at your organisation? (E.g., pilot, production, ...)
- Do you plan to continue to use the Recommendation?
- Did you need to modify the Recommendation for your use?
- Can you give an estimate of how much time / effort you have spent on the adoption so far?
- What’s your overall experience? (E.g., Very Good, Good, Fair, Poor)
- Would you do it again?
- Council review: Council reviews the OA commentary (if any), adoption report, and community responses, and detects the presence or absence of consensus. In the case of consensus, Council endorses the Recommendation.
Supporting Outputs Process
If you are interested in having an output from your IG or WG published as a Supporting Output, please contact enquiries[at]rd-alliance[dot]org.
The group should provide the Supporting Output to the Secretariat in a non-proprietary, open-file and electronic format, together with the following information:
- A title and short description
- UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (An explanation of how the Recommendations contribute to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). See here for a list of the 17 goals and please specify which goals, if any, are relevant to the Group’s Recommendations.)
- Authorship information
- A basic metadata set or other metadata information in RDF/XML Dublin Core (the Secretariat can help with this)
- Licensing information (as applicable): For RDA Outputs, the default license is Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) .
Supporting Outputs undergo a community review phase of one month. If there are no significant objections by the end of the Community Review phase, the Supporting Outputs will be published in the RDA Outputs and Recommendations Catalogue.
Depositing RDA Documents in Zenodo
RDA has two Zenodo Community* collections:
1. Research Data Alliance
Description: Contains official documents published by the RDA Secretariat and approved by the Governance Boards.
Curation Policy: This collection contains official documents published by the Research Data Alliance (rd-alliance.org). These include Governance documents, Recommendations, and Supporting Outputs. Other RDA-related documents can be included in the “Research Data Alliance - Related Documents” collection.
2. Research Data Alliance - Related Documents
Description: Contains documents that are related to Research Data Alliance (RDA) activities that are not official RDA documents.
Curation Policy: This collection includes documents that are related to Research Data Alliance (RDA) activities, but are not official RDA documents, produced by the RDA Secretariat, RDA Working or Interest Groups and Communities of Practice and other approved (by the Secretary General) sources. Examples could include reports and other documents that are not meant to be official group outputs, or documents from RDA-related activities such as RDA national groups or initiatives, RDA related events and workshop outputs.
Official RDA documents can be found in the Research Data Alliance collection.
*community in Zenodo refers to collection of documents
Development and Distribution of Official RDA Outputs
Once the Outputs have been recognised and endorsed, the Secretariat will be responsible for announcing them to members and non-members via the following channels as appropriate:
- Press releases
- Website announcements
- RDA newsletter
- Journal articles
- Social media
- E-mail campaigns
- Webinars
- Other