{"id":2003,"date":"2012-04-19T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-19T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/msr_er\/2012\/04\/19\/open-data-for-open-sciencean-eye-opening-event\/"},"modified":"2016-07-20T07:32:58","modified_gmt":"2016-07-20T14:32:58","slug":"open-data-for-open-sciencean-eye-opening-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/blog\/open-data-for-open-sciencean-eye-opening-event\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Data for Open Science\u2014an Eye-Opening Event"},"content":{"rendered":"

Punctuating the gray skies and rain that typify spring in the Pacific Northwest, the first week of April brought a sunny gathering of data scientists and engineers from multiple disciplines to Microsoft’s Redmond campus, where the second annual Open Data for Open Science workshop, or <\/span>ODOS2012<\/span> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, took place. With overwhelming support from Microsoft product groups, Microsoft Research labs, and the Microsoft Research Connections team, the workshop featured a compelling <\/span>agenda<\/span> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> that attracted a full house of eager and excited attendees. The results greatly exceeded our expectations!<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Some
<\/span><\/span><\/span>Some of the ODOS2012 attendees<\/span>—<\/i>eager and excited about the event<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

ODOS2012 brought together two distinguished groups: (1) Microsoft researchers and engineers who are working on cutting-edge computing technologies, and (2) leading academic and government scientists who are conducting environmental research using big data. The latter group comprised about 40 attendees, including international participants from Australia, Brazil, China, and Canada. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The agenda covered 26 topics on various Microsoft products, Microsoft Research technologies, and Microsoft Research collaborations with academia and governments worldwide. The technologies presented are components of Microsoft <\/span>Environmental Informatics Frameworks<\/span> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> (EIF), which is a strategy designed to use state-of-the-art computing technologies from Microsoft in solving the computational challenges of today’s big-data sciences. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the demos were developed by applying Microsoft technology on data and scenarios provided by the research collaborators, and some were spontaneous showcases presented by the external attendees. The workshop not only demonstrated visually powerful technologies, including WorldWide Telescope, ChronoZoom, and PivotViewer, but also helped push computational practices to the next level by engaging the user community with core computing technologies such as OData and Windows Azure. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The presentation, New Tools for Environmental Science<\/em> by Lucas Joppa, a collective contribution from Microsoft Research Cambridge (UK) to the ODOS2012 agenda, is worth noting in particular for couple of reasons: 1) the presentation generated an enlightening awareness of the Computational Ecology and Environmental Science initiative among the audience. 2) Lucas delivered his entire presentation in Cambridge via Skype and had seamlessly effective Q&A interaction with the audience. With such a successful online interactive presentation experience, we plan to enrich our future ODOS event agenda by including more remote presentations.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The attendees’ enthusiasm was obvious, with many of them telling me, “This is eye opening!” and others writing glowing evaluations of the event. John Willson, an environmental informatics researcher from Canada, called it “…the best information payload on CS & the environment I have received in a decade…well organized, well presented, heavy content, simulating attendees…just a great workshop with lots of relevant ideas.” <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

We are already looking forward to next year’s Open Data for Open Science workshop, and we encourage all environmental researchers to use EIF and share your experiences with us. Next year, you could be presenting at ODOS as we continue to explore the use of technology in tackling the big-data problems of environmental science. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

—<\/i>Yan Xu<\/span><\/i> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, Senior Research Program Manager, Microsoft Research Connections<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Learn More<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n