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International info and data body recognizes IITA staff with a fellowship award

IITA’s Institutional Data Manager, Olatunbosun Obileye (Bosun), was recently conferred a 3-year fellowship by IASSIST (International Association for Social Science Information Services & Technology) in Sydney, Australia during its 2019 conference. The fellowship provides free access to its membership network with opportunities to collaborate on funded projects, get technical support, participate in training and development of cutting-edge tools and apps that can support IITA initiatives.

IASSIST 2019 had the theme “Data Down Under” and was attended by leaders from ivy league schools from all over the world along with high-powered delegates from the Australian government.

IASSIST is an international organization of professionals working in and with information technology and data services to support research and teaching in the social sciences. Its 300 members are from a variety of workplaces, including data archives, statistical agencies, research centers, libraries, academic institutions, government departments, and non-profit organizations.

Bosun delivered a paper titled “Democratization of data in emerging economies with focus on Africa” at the conference. His paper attracted data leaders from Cornell, Harvard, and Stanford Universities to open discussions on how to integrate IITA’s institutional repository CKAN into the ivy league schools’ open access repositories. Meanwhile, the International Federation of Data Organisation (IFDO) offered to accept IITA as a member with a fee waiver. The global body responsible for accreditation of open repositories leadership (Core Trust Seal of Approval) that was present at the conference, encouraged IITA to officially apply for CKAN certification, noting that IITA is already at a level 3 compliance (meaning that IITA CKAN documentation, data quality and control is acceptable) with global standards for open access repositories.

The conference showcased efforts from various institutions from Canada, US, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and several Asian countries on data archiving, data management, and information science. IITA’s efforts to secure Core Trust Seal for the data archive repository CKAN was noted; the high quality of agricultural research data generated by IITA was also a major subject of discussion as well as the standardization of CKAN.