TOWARD FAIR AND OPEN DATA: CGIAR CENTERS' DATA REPOSITORIES

Abstract:

CGIAR is a global partnership comprising 15 research centers spread all over the world that are dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources and ecosystem services. Data are critical to and underpin many research studies undertaken by the CGIAR centers. While making the data available and easily accessible to others enhances the ability of the CGIAR centers to carry out their mandates, it was not always at the forefront of their agendas. Since the adoption of the CGIAR Open Access and Open Data Policy by each center in 2013, however, efforts to make data open and accessible have been systematically ramped up and coordinated across centers. This includes making changes in research data management practices, instituting policies and protocols across centers, and adopting standard protocols and workflows for curating and publishing datasets. The CGIAR Data Repository Working Group, a cross-center community of 35 data and repository managers, curators, and information technologists, was also established in support of Module 1 of the CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture’s program for knowledge exchange.

The CG centers use several different platforms for data repositories, including Harvard Dataverse and the locally installed Dataverse and CKAN. Together, the centers are working to adhere to FAIR data principles through consistent usage of standard CG core metadata schema, controlled vocabularies (AGROVOC, CABI), domain- and field-specific ontology, and CCBY4.0 licenses. Overall, more than 6,000 datasets are openly available through the CG centers’ data repositories. These datasets can be collectively accessed through the GARDIAN platform. The CGIAR Big Data Platform designed GARDIAN to facilitate access to agricultural data and publications across CGIAR and beyond. In this session, we will discuss the centers’ efforts and strategies for moving toward open and FAIR data, what has and has not worked, and what can be improved so that other organizations can also learn from our experiences.