Information for new and potential collaboration area leads.
On this page:
For more information:
"Collaboration Area" is a catch-all term that includes communities of practice, working groups, focus groups, and clusters (see definitions below).
Collaboration areas vary greatly in their activities and goals, and that is fine. We welcome all.
There are very few requirements for being a collaboration area under the CDI.
Communications options - let us know what you’d like us to set up
Copy and paste email list (if you have a small amount (<20 members) and don't expect members to add or remove themselves)
Mailman email listserv - "self-service" additions and removals, accessible to external members, many settings including moderation of the list
Other options that you decide e.g. MSTeams channel
Best practices
Keep notes and/or recordings of meetings (See Data management WG example), or some other alternative format to document what happened for those that weren't able to make the meeting.
If you have events, help us keep our CDI Calendar up to date by letting us know about the events
A lot of different words are used to describe collaboration areas, but most of the time the choice of specific word was determined by the popular word at the time. In the beginning of CDI, they were all "working groups," then as they varied in their purpose they because "collaboration areas," and some are less formal ("cluster") or more focused and time-bound ("focus group"). And they are all basically "communities of practice." I would suggest not to get too hung up on the name, and consider the groups all "collaboration areas."
(Definitions from the CDI 2018 Annual Report)
Cluster: A less formal group that can range from a mailing list to a group that maintains online collections of resources on their area of interest.
Collaboration area: A group formed around a specific topic that provides a platform for sharing resources and knowledge, discussing challenges, and identifying solutions that will help to advance data integration in the Earth and biological sciences.
Community of practice: A group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly (https://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/). The Community for Data Integration itself is a community of practice, and some of its collaboration areas identify themselves as communities of practice.
Focus group: Smaller and usually time-limited groups that form to address more specific issues and report up to their respective collaboration area.
Working group: A subgroup of the Community for Data Integration that forms around common interests, helps address challenges, and identifies solutions that enable data integration efforts.
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Attribution: Thanks for contributed content to this page from Ludwig, Kristin A..