The DataCite Annual Community Meeting was held on 12 October 2023. The first thing to notice about this sentence is the subtle, but important, change in the name of the event from being a Member Meeting to a Community Meeting. This change emphasizes the community nature of DataCite as reflected in our new messaging, and is driven by our desire to be as open and inclusive as possible, welcoming anyone with an interest in DataCite and our activities.
[Top row: Ginny Hendricks (Crossref), Helena Cousijn (DataCite; moderator), Xiaoli Chen (DataCite), Kristin Eldon Whylly (Templeton World Charity Foundation). Bottom row: Shawna Sadler (ORCID), Maria Cruz (Dutch Research Council), Amanda French (ROR), Erin McKiernan (Open Research Funders Group)]
The spirit of inclusive community engagement was particularly evident during what was the highlight of the 2023 Annual Meeting, a panel session with the (long) title, ‘The Role of Funders in Building a Robust and Trustworthy Output Tracking Mechanism Using PIDs and Open Metadata’ (aka the Funders Panel Session). Attracting nearly 280 people from across the global DataCite community, this panel session brought together representatives from both persistent identifier (PID-)providing organizations and research funders to explore the roles that funders have in incentivizing and normalizing the adoption by researchers of the FAIR Principles and Open Science practices.
This has been one of the most interesting and useful webinars/panels I’ve been to in a while! Thanks so much to you all!
Quote from the chat during the Funders Panel Session
Inspired by the Implementing FAIR Workflows Project, the session put to the test some of the thinking arising from the project’s recently published ‘Guide for funders to support FAIR workflows & enable research tracking’ that focuses on Open and FAIR grant management, output tracking, and impact measurement. The appetite of the audience for this topic was highlighted by its lively questioning and commenting during the robust moderated discussion on the ways funders can benefit from integrating PIDs into their workflows. The value of the session to attendees was accentuated by over 83% of respondents to a post-session survey rating the session as ‘Extremely Useful’ or ‘Very Useful’.
Beyond the Funders Panel Session, the Community Meeting followed a similar structure to the previous year, held in two blocks spanning all time zones to the best extent possible, and with mostly repeated session topics to provide our global community with the same opportunities to learn about DataCite current and future foci, and to provide their inputs. In particular, two sessions on DataCite strategic initiatives provided updates on our Grant ID pilot, our partnership with the International Generic Sample Number (IGSN) Organization, Make Data Count, and the Global Access Program.
A difference of the 2023 Meeting was to use the repeated blocks to have a more regional focus on what was being presented. This was exemplified in two sessions on ‘DOI Workflow Best Practices’, which showcased how DataCite Members based in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas connect multiple PIDs—including IGSN IDs, ORCID iDs, and ROR IDs—within their DataCite DOI metadata.
Throughout the day, a total of approximately 540 participants from 400 institutions in 58 countries attended the sessions.
The author had the pleasure of overseeing the organization of the 2023 DataCite Community Meeting, and I want to give a big thank you to all the presenters and attendees. The meeting cannot exist without both the enthusiasm of our DataCite colleagues to put the sessions together and the enthusiasm of our community to participate and provide inputs and feedback. We are already looking forward to next year’s meeting!
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