Research and deploy services to cover a mediation function

From GRDI2020

This is a GRDI recommendation; return to Main Page with all the challenges and recommendations

Context and Challenges

In order to enable multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary research, new methods and techniques must be developed that implement “a mediation function” between “boundary objects” of different disciplines. By mediation function, we mean a function that is able to map a boundary object (cf. Support disciplinary data infrastructures in building networks of boundary objects) defined by a discipline into a semantically equivalent boundary object of another discipline.

Recommendation

Future “multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary data infrastructures” should effectively support multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary research by developing a mediation technology that is capable of translating between different object types and data contexts. A mediation function will be automatic where possible, and human-guided where necessary. It will be informed by a network of “boundary objects” that semantically describe individual elements (e.g., semantic annotations, authority files, metadata).