NFDI wide Workshop on the development and implementation of basic services (Base4NFDI) and DataPLANT's contribution

Fri Feb 16 2024

DataPLANT took part in an online workshop on the development and implementation of basic services coordinated by the NFDI. The objectives of the workshop held by Base4NFDI the 16th February online was to define the future development of basic services and to agree upon how consortia could or should commit to adopting a (potential) core service during the integration phase. With first service reaching phase three it needs to be clarified how the commitment should look like. For this a discussion on the coordination and decision making process was held as well as concrete ideas on how to ensure commitment to collaborating on core services generated. The considerations were refined in the breakout sessions.

A potential plan is to incorporate this into the mandatory requirements for the “integration phase” of the core service application. During the inaugural year, developments can still be observed. For the further steps consortia should: Signal the adoption within each consortium, optimally backed by a public statement with a specific project plan or roadmap. Here step-by-step Communities of Practice should be build, which consist of a team of consortium members supporting usage within the consortium, actively using it themselves, and reaching a critical mass. To reach a widespread impact in consortia, core services should be made available to the entire community and the commitment to the core service should have a critical mass in consortia, meaning that e.g. infrastructure facilities/data centers/researchers (if it is an end-user component).

DataPLANT itself plans to contribute to base services: Firstly, We are already in exchange with the IAM working group to investigate in a NFDI wide AAI solution. Secondly, we plan to expand established concepts and services in DataPLANT to the wider NFDI. For this, we had already launched an open “call for participation” at last year’s CoRDI with a poster to encourage a general service for versioning and sharing code and data (based on GitLab). The feedback was consistently very good and interest from various institutions (and consortia) was definitely there. DataPLANT uses GitLab heavily as a starting point for the FDM workflows (centered around the ARC) and as a data repository. We are offering it as a package for an on-premise installation and are in contact with various institutions on further roll-outs.

Links
Poster - GitLab as a tool for Research Data Management
DataHUB – On-premise Installation