Human Dimensions Open Data Challenge Judging Criteria (1) Team Strength (20%) Diversity Does the team have diverse expertise (researchers, graduate students, multidisciplinarity, user group)? Future Contributions What is the potential of the team to make future contributions? What is the level of the team s commitment to showcasing/promotional events. (2) Quality of the Solution (40%) Functionality Does it accomplish its stated goal (i.e., solve the problem / address the scope of the issue identified)? Are there further improvements (added value) that may be made to further enhance the solution s uptake? Intuitiveness Is it clear and easy to understand and adopt/use? Is it creative and engaging? 1
(3) Potential Impact (40%) Impact What is the magnitude of the impact? Who will be impacted (target audience, quantity, demographics, sector)? What is the potential for the solution to have influence beyond its target audience? Viability/Sustainability How likely is it that the solution will be adopted by the intended audience? Is the solution scalable? What is the quality of the Business Plan and Knowledge Mobilization Plan (one page each)? Has the team undertaken an efficient and sustainable approach to data usage and data management? 2
Human Dimensions Open Data Challenge Guidelines General Information What is the Human Dimensions Open Data Challenge? The Human Dimensions Open Data Challenge is a national competition organized in partnership with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Compute Canada, the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE), and Think Data Works, targeting multidisciplinary research teams led by social sciences and humanities researchers. Competing teams, using open-data sets, will develop systems, processes or fully functional technology applications that address the human dimensions of key challenges in the natural resource and energy sectors. The topic of natural resources and energy, identified as a Future Challenge Area through SSHRC s Imagining Canada s Future initiative, involves social, cultural and economic challenges that can be addressed through the development and adoption of innovative systems and/or processes, technologies or methods of application. The Human Dimensions Open Data Challenge competition is a two-stage competition. Five teams will be chosen as finalists from among the eligible solutions submitted in the first stage. The five finalist teams will then present their solutions to a panel of judges at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, taking place in May 2016 at the University of Calgary. These judges will determine the top, award-winning team. Prizes The five finalist teams will each be awarded $3,000, and will, as part of the challenge, be provided access to Compute Canada cloud resources for the remainder of the calendar year. The top team will be selected from among the five finalist teams, and will be awarded an additional $5,000, given four tickets to the High Performance Computing Symposium in 2016 (HPCS2016), and invited to present at HPCS2017. The finalists and the winning team will be promoted through social media channels. To be selected as a finalist, teams must agree to participate in the Congress event, to be held in Calgary in May 2016. What is open data? Open data is the practice of making machine-readable data freely available to anyone to develop all kinds of new and useful solutions, products, and applications that surpass the initial value of the original data. 3
How do I register to participate in the Human Dimensions Open Data Challenge? You must create a Compute Canada account in order to enter the competition and to submit a final solution. Participants are strongly encouraged to use the open data sets provided on the Compute Canada platform, available free of charge. Participants may also use their own data sets, which will become accessible to the other participants, and will remain accessible to the research community after the competition closes. What are the deadlines? Solutions must be submitted by March 31, 2016. Finalists will be selected by the review committee mid- April 2016, and notified by email. A representative of the five finalist teams will be asked to present their solutions to a panel of judges at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the end of May, at the University of Calgary, where the top award-winning team will be selected and announced. Where is the competition? Participant teams in the first phase of the competition will develop and submit their entries remotely, using the Compute Canada network platform. The finalists selected from the first phase will present their refined proposals during Congress 2016, at the University of Calgary. How will my application be judged? The submissions for the Human Dimensions Open Data Challenge competition (Step 1) will be judged against three main criteria: a) team strength; b) quality of the solution; and c) potential impact. The same criteria will be used for step two of the competition, when the five finalist research teams are assessed more fully in terms of solution adoption. Is this a hackathon? Event Information The Human Dimensions Open Data Challenge is not a traditional hackathon, where there is a specific technology application developed as a result of a short timeframe. Nor is it restricted to any particular physical location. The competition takes place virtually over a three-month timeframe, with a range of possible processes, systems and technology applications. Using open data sets, participants develop solutions to a set of real-life issues identified by end-users across various sectors (academic, government, business, not-for-profit). How many people can be on a team? There is no maximum number of members for a research team. 4
Who is eligible to participate on a research team? The competition is open to all research teams with at least one researcher affiliated with a Canadian postsecondary institution (college or university). The project must be led by a social sciences or humanities researcher affiliated with a Canadian postsecondary institution. Other members of the research team may come from other postsecondary institutions in Canada or abroad, and be from other disciplines. Additional nonacademic experts may also be included as part of the research team. See the judging criteria on assessing team strength (i.e., multidisciplinarity, diversity, future contributions). Employees of the partners (SSHRC, OCE, Compute Canada, ThinkData Works) and their immediate family members and/or those living in the same household, whether legally related or not, are not eligible to be team members. For the purposes of the challenge, immediate family members are defined as spouse, domestic partner, parents, legal guardians, parent- in-law, in-laws, grandparents, siblings, children and grandchildren. Initial screening for eligibility Applications submitted by the deadline date will be screened for eligibility prior to being considered in Step 1 of the Human Dimensions Open Data Challenge. What resources or tools are provided to assist teams? Compute Canada will provide cloud resources to competing teams, including the following: 10 virtual CPUs (equivalent to the CPUs on desktop computers, but in a cloud environment); 3 volumes (drives to use to organize data); 100 GB of storage (shared across volumes and backups); 15 GB of RAM; and two floating IPs. Data will be held on ThinkData systems, and will be accessible via an application programming interface. If very large amounts of data or intense periods of data access are required, teams should speak to their Compute Canada technical expert for alternative arrangements. These cloud resources will initially be preconfigured by Compute Canada into a single virtual machine equivalent to a powerful desktop computer, but in a cloud, with an operating system of the team lead's choosing. This preconfiguration can be modified later by contacting the Compute Canada technical expert. This expert will be matched with the team once their Compute Canada account has been created. 5
Can I still participate if I do not use the Compute Canada platform? The Compute Canada platform is necessary to create an account in order to register for the competition and submit the open data solution entry. But, the tool or solution does not need to be developed or implemented on the Compute Canada cloud. Is there any assistance provided in terms of technical support or finding team members? Yes. Compute Canada will assist teams who wish to use the provided cloud resources by matching each team to a technical expert, who will assist them as required. Compute Canada will also draw on its knowledge of researchers across the country to perform a limited matching service to connect teams looking for members with researchers looking for teams. Technical support for participants using systems other than Compute Canada s platforms will be available subject to availability. What happens after I submit? After your solution has been submitted and received by Compute Canada, all research team members will receive an email indicating that their application has been successfully received. How do I register? Registration is a two-step process that involves setting up a Compute Canada account, then registering a team composed of members with Compute Canada accounts. To register for a Compute Canada account, visit https://ccdb.computecanada.ca/. Note that there are two primary account types. The first is meant for faculty members and librarians at Canadian postsecondary institutions. The second is meant for users who are sponsored by a faculty member or librarian. All participants will need one of these account types. For example, a team composed entirely of students will still need to find one or more faculty members to sponsor the team member accounts and to act as the lead researcher for this challenge. To register a team, a faculty member or librarian with a Compute Canada account needs to visit https://ccdb.computecanada.ca/hd-odc and provide the names and Compute Canada IDs of the team members, as well as the team name and a short description of the challenge components that the team plans to pursue. Throughout the challenge, the team lead can return to this page to update the team members as necessary. When registering, the team lead will also be able to choose the default operating system that will be used to create the initial virtual machine in the cloud (either Windows or Linux). Shortly after registering, the team lead will receive an email indicating which technical expert within Compute Canada will be supporting them, and providing instructions on how to access the preconfigured virtual machine in the cloud that has been allocated to the team. 6
How do I edit my team profile? The team profile can be edited at any time during the competition by the person who was designated the team leader when the team was created. Just visit https://ccdb.computecanada.ca/hd-odc and log in. Do I have to create a team? Yes. Even if you are competing as a one-person team, you will need to create a team and fill out the profile. You need to be in a team to submit your application to the Human Dimensions Open Data Challenge competition. Given the emphasis on team composition in the selection criteria, participants are encouraged to have multiple team members. Please review the requirements for team composition under Who is eligible to participate on a research team? above. Who owns the intellectual property rights? Submissions The research teams own their own intellectual property, and may publish their solution after the competition results have been announced at Congress 2016. In the process of submitting an application to Compute Canada for the competition, the research team member making the submission on behalf of his or her team must provide consent (electronically) for the use, reproduction, publication, transmission and/or broadcasting of his/her team members name, likeness, and/or prize information, without compensation, in any publication or promotion by the partners (SSHRC, OCE, Compute Canada, Think Data Works) for the purposes of promoting the competition, its five finalist teams, the winning team, and/or the benefits of research in the social sciences and humanities. What data sets can be used? Any data set that is available on the Internet to anyone without cost or other restriction as of the announcement of the challenge may be used. What is the best way to work with data sets? The Government of Canada's Open Government Portal offers excellent guidance on working with data sets. Participants are encouraged to follow sound data management planning practices to promote the efficient or green usage of data (e.g., downloading and storing only essential data into the cloud space). How do I submit my solution? All solutions, regardless of the form that they take, are to be submitted at https://ccdb.computecanada.ca/hd-odc anytime during the last month of the challenge. The submission 7
must take the form of a single file archive (zip, tar, etc.) that contains all the original code used to produce the solution and the solution itself, whether this be a program/application, a research paper describing a result or making a recommendation. When do I submit my solution? Teams can submit their solutions at any time during the challenge, between January 14, 2016 (12:00 p.m. [noon] eastern), and March 31, 2016 (11:59 p.m. eastern). No submissions will be considered if submitted after the deadline date and time. Why do I have to give access to my code? Compute Canada will be reviewing the code submitted by each research team to ensure that no changes have been made after the solution was submitted. Research team members own their code. SSHRC and its partners (OCE, Compute Canada and ThinkData Works) will not sell, distribute or use this code. Can I submit more than once? Yes. The last submission Compute Canada receives from each team before the deadline date and time will be the one that is considered final for submission to the judges. How do I make sure you can review and/or test my solution? The easiest way to ensure that we can test or review your solution is to build it on systems provided by Compute Canada. If you choose to build a solution in another environment, then it needs to be the case that the solution can either be accessed directly via the web using any standard web browser or installed without difficulty on a machine running OSX 10.10, Windows 10, a major flavour of Linux (Ubuntu, Red Hat, Debian, etc.) running the most recent updates, ios 9, Android 5, or the latest releases of either LibreOffice or Microsoft Office. If you have a solution that is not covered or addressed by these requirements, then speak with your Compute Canada technical expert well in advance of making your submission. It is strongly recommended that the file archive that you submit contains a plain text file called README that explains what each of the elements within the file archive are, how they fit in to the overall submission, and any steps required to modify the base OS environment required to run any code or tools submitted with the solution. It is also strongly recommended that written documentation with the exception of programming code, html files and the like be submitted as PDFs to ensure consistency of presentation. 8
Judging Submissions will be judged by a panel of judges. The decisions of the judges on all matters relating to judging the final solutions submitted by each research team to Compute Canada are final and not open to appeal. The five finalist teams will be selected by an expert jury and announced in April 2016. At the time of adjudication, any judges deemed by the partners to have a real or perceived conflict of interest with a submission under consideration will be recused from discussions of that submission. A judge will be considered to be in a conflict of interest if the submission involves: a friend; an immediate family member (as defined above); an institutional colleague; or a person with whom the judge is involved in a dispute. If the partners, at their sole discretion, deem that an insufficient quantity or quality of submissions has been received, the partners reserve the right not to award any prizes, and to terminate the Human Dimensions Open Data Challenge. Team Strength (20%) Scoring Diversity Future contributions Quality of the Solution (40%) Functionality Intuitiveness Potential Impact (40%) Impact Viability/sustainability Awards The five finalist teams will each be awarded $3,000. The award-winning team will be selected from among the five finalist teams and will be awarded an additional $5,000. The finalists and the winning team will be promoted through social media channels. To be selected as a finalist, teams must agree to participate in the second stage of the competition. 9
Personal Information Any personal information collected in order to administer the challenge is under the control of SSHRC and its partners (OCE, Compute Canada, ThinkData Works) and will be managed in accordance with the Privacy Act. Information collected for the purposes of administering the Human Dimensions Open Data Challenge competition may be subject to disclosure in accordance with the Access to Information Act. Personal information of the five finalist research teams and winning research team (such as name, likeness, institution of enrolment and/or prize information) may be used, without compensation, in any publication or promotional material by the partners for the sole purposes of promoting the Human Dimensions Open Data Challenge competition, its five finalist research teams, the winning research team, and/or the benefits of research in the social sciences and humanities. Questions regarding the collection, disclosure and use of the research team members personal information may be directed to john.simpson@computecanada.ca. Other An acknowledgment of receipt from Compute Canada will be sent upon receipt of a team s solution. The registered members of the five finalist teams will be notified prior to Congress 2016 (by mid-april 2016). The winning research team will be announced during Congress 2016, in May. Other participating teams whose submissions have been received by Compute Canada will not be notified of the results of the competition. Before receiving their award, and within five calendar days of being notified that their submission has been selected, the five finalist teams and the winning research team will be required to provide consent and release confirming, among other things, compliance with these Human Dimensions Open Data Challenge guidelines, acceptance of the finalist title or award, and consent that their personal information (such as name, likeness, institution of enrolment and/or award information) may be used, without further compensation, in any publication or promotional material, by the partners (SSHRC, OCE, Compute Canada, Think Data Works), for the sole purposes of promoting the challenge, its five research team finalists, the winning research team, and/or the benefits of research in the social sciences and humanities. All awards must be accepted as awarded, without substitution. Names of the top five research team finalists and winning team will be made public during Congress 2016 in May, and diffused via social media channels (i.e., Twitter and Facebook) and other means, including partners (SSHRC, OCE, Compute Canada and ThinkData Works) websites. The partners (SSHRC, OCE, Compute Canada and ThinkData Works) reserve the right to cancel, terminate, modify or suspend the Human Dimensions Open Data Challenge for any reason. Any notification of such action may be posted online on SSHRC s and Compute Canada s websites and/or via 10
social media channels. Participating research teams are encouraged to periodically check for such notifications. By entering this competition, research teams agree to abide by these Human Dimensions Open Data Challenge guidelines, and acknowledge that the partners (SSHRC, OCE, Compute Canada and ThinkData Works) shall not be responsible for any damages, costs, demands, claims or losses of any kind incurred by any research team members as a result of participation in this competition. This competition shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of Ontario and any applicable federal laws. These rules and regulations govern all aspects of the challenge and are binding on all participating research teams. This is a skills-based challenge and is void where prohibited by law. The partners (SSHRC, OCE, Compute Canada and ThinkData Works) are not responsible for entries that are not received by Compute Canada (be they delayed, lost, misdirected, incomplete, damaged or destroyed) by the deadline. Any submission that is tampered with, unreadable, unintelligible or mutilated will be ineligible. The partners are not responsible for telephone, computer or network malfunction or error (whether technical or human in nature), communication disruption, or other forces beyond the reasonable control of the partners. 11