Managing the data deluge: the challenge of emerging technologies

At the 2010 IUFRO congress, Roger Mills and colleagues will organize a session entitled 'Managing the data deluge: the challenge of emerging technologies.'

Emerging technologies are greatly simplifying the collection, analysis and publication of data for the researcher and end-user, often reducing or removing the need for mediation by IT professionals. Partly as a result the volume of data being collected worldwide is greatly expanding. Locating, selecting, archiving and indexing this mountain of data for re-use presents major new challenges which are being researched by many organisations..

This session will offer a brief synthesis of this research and guidelines derived from it, and provide participants with a toolkit for devising a successful data management plan for their own data to ensure it remains findable, accessible and usable into the future. Practical demonstrations and the opportunity to contribute to a user needs assessment of researchers’ requirements will accompany the session. A panel of speakers will provide the synthesis of research in a mix of short presentations and discussion, supplemented by voluntary papers on specific examples, and by posters giving more details of specific topics.

If feasible, the session will be supplemented by an ‘information fair’ running throughout the meeting where specific technologies can be demonstrated and users given opportunity for hands-on practice.