Joseph Matshelo: The walking library: Makgadikgadi Salt Pans

Joseph Matshelo: The walking library: Makgadikgadi Salt Pans: Northeast of Africa’s  Kalahari Desert  and southeast of the  Okavango Delta  lies one of the largest salt pans in the world. It was once t...

Makgadikgadi Salt Pans

Northeast of Africa’s Kalahari Desert and southeast of the Okavango Delta lies one of the largest salt pans in the world. It was once the site of one of the largest inland seas on Earth.

On June 10, 2018, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this natural-color image of the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans. The collection of salt flats covers roughly 30,000 square kilometers (10,000 square miles) amidst desert and dry savanna in Botswana. Located in Makgadikgadi National Park and Nxai Pan National Park, the salt pans are rivaled in extent only by the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia.

For much of the year, the salt pans glimmer in white, parched by the sun and the salt and allowing little more than algae to grow. But during the rainy season (roughly November to March), the area can be transformed into a crucial wetland.

Read more https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/92394/makgadikgadi-salt-pans

Poetavango: Cold Bold Winter Nights

WIN A TICKET TO THE COLD BOLD WINTER WORDS POETRY GALA! HOW?

1. Share this post on your wall.
2. Tag lots of friends
3. Create hype on the post you’ve shared by getting as many likes, comments, reactions and
further shares from your share as possible.
4. By end of Friday 29th, the sharer with a larger total of likes, comments, reactions and further
shares wins the ticket!
5. Start now and make the loudest noise!

Flow : Information for Okavango Delta Planning: Bachelor of Pharmacy

Flow : Information for Okavango Delta Planning: Bachelor of Pharmacy: The University of Botswana and Faculty of Health Sciences are proud to announce a Bachelor of Pharmacy Programme tenable at the Universit...

Flow : Information for Okavango Delta Planning: King Mswati III - Tour Okavango Delta

Flow : Information for Okavango Delta Planning: King Mswati III - Tour Okavango Delta: His Majesty, King Mswati III of the Kingdom of eSwatini arrived in Botswana last night. While in Botswana, he will tour the Okavango Delta....

DATA PROTECTION BILL TO ENSURE PRIVACY

Minister for Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration, Mr Nonofo Molefhi brought before Parliament, a bill seeking to regulate the protection of personal data and ensure that the privacy of individuals is maintained, on June 25.

In his presentation of the bill, Minister Molefhi noted that the while Section 9 of the constitution guaranteed the right to privacy as one of the fundamentals rights and freedoms of an individual,
sensitive personal data related to an individual and revealed amongst other things, a person’s racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, sexual and personal financial information.
https://twitter.com/BWGovernment/status/1011865956967215105

Session Title: Improving Data Repository Trustworthiness

Session Description:

The opportunity to continually access and use research data is necessary for scientific progress, validation, and for subsequent studies to build on the work of previous research. Producers, users, funders, and managers of research data need to know whether the digital repositories that are accepting the responsibility for the stewardship of research data will be managing the data and related information within their collections in accordance with established and accepted practices for managing and caring for digital research data.

The Core Trustworthy Data Repositories Requirements (CoreTrustSeal) have been developed to provide specifications for assessing digital repositories as trustworthy stewards of data. Based on the Open Archival Information Systems (OAIS) Reference Model and on previous instruments for assessing data repositories (e.g. the Data Seal of Approval), the sixteen CoreTrustSeal requirements are being actively used by the research data community. The CoreTrustSeal is also used by several consortia and federations to assess data repositories. Examples include the World Data System (WDS) for its Regular Members, the US NASA Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) for its Digital Active Archives, and the CLARIN – European Research Infrastructure for Language Resources and Technology for its B-Centres.

The CoreTrustSeal requirements provide an opportunity for data repositories to continually improve their capabilities and services for managing and distributing their data holdings. Furthermore, the CoreTrustSeal requirements offer an opportunity for data repositories to conduct self-assessments and to identify areas of their own data repository practices that are in need of improvement. Adopting the CoreTrustSeal requirements also enables data repositories to demonstrate their commitment to the stewardship of research data.

This session presents panelists who will introduce the CoreTrustSeal requirements, explain the certification process, and provide case studies of experiences that data repositories have encountered in their efforts to improve the trustworthiness of their data stewardship practices by means of core certification.

Session Organizers: Wim Hugo, Ingrid Dillo, Robert R. Downs, Mustapha Mokrane

●        1 presentation about CTS in general

●        2 case studies of preferably African seal holders

●        panel discussion

https://www.scidatacon.org/IDW2018/sessions/149/