Mission and Objectives¶
The goal of this task group is to work with the International Science Unions to raise awareness of, educate, and enable their communities in the understanding and implementation of digital unit representation. This will be done with reference to each goal of the CODATA Decadal Program, namely:
Enabling Technologies and Good Practice for Data-Intensive Science
Mobilizing Domains and Breaking Down Silos
Advancing Interoperability Through Cross-Domain Exemplary Case Studies
Each of the above goals can be addressed by awareness of the different units-of-measurement representations that are currently available. This, coupled with the movement toward FAIR data, will be used to promote the idea that units of measurement are not second-class citizens in science, but rather the most important aspect of what is needed to make data FAIR.
Significance¶
Every measurement made where a numerical value is generated requires the recording of and association with a unit of measurement. In the current research environment, where the paradigm is shifting to the digital publication of research data in openly accessible formats, researchers annotate a unit of measurement by adding a string of characters to a numeric value in a computer system (database, spreadsheet, text file, etc.) While the researcher may well report the unit in a common unit system (e.g., the SI), the guidelines for formatting these strings (e.g., BIPM, ISO, NIST) are often not followed. As a result, there is a significant problem in normalization of units and this is a significant barrier to the interoperability of data.
Impact (Outcomes and Achievements)¶
Recommendations for FAIR compliant, machine-actionable encoding of measurement units in different scenarios (e.g., typesetting, spreadsheet, database, webpage)
Guidelines for the annotation of data with a unit of measurement in digital systems
Best practices for adopting and implementing the recommended DRUM system
A Units of Measure Interoperability Service (UMIS) to enable unit web services
Schedule of planned activities and outputs of the Task Group for 2026–2027¶
Increase the engagement with the International Science Unions, via their CODATA Ambassadors, to understand domain-related issues concerning unit representation in Science and Social Science domains.
Current work has highlighted the need for usable solutions, backwards and forwards compatible, but simple and easy to use.
To continue to help create service-oriented infrastructure (APIs) to access Unit information.
Test the ideas of the M-layer and set up a trial service and explore the acceptability of this solution for ratio quantities.
Work to provide exemplar tools to support software in programming languages, LLMs and other tools that are rapidly becoming essential research tools.
Following the DRUM paper in Nature and the CODATA paper with an update on the state of unit representation in programming languages, Large Language Models
Update the survey of the existing unit descriptions and make further suggestions to a more unified approach.
Make recommendations for representations for “counting” and exemplified in dressed units such as kg-CO2-equivalent.
Work closely with the BIPM on digital SI as the base of the provenance systems for the digital representation of units and work with other standards organizations (e.g., ISO).
Widen the TG’s social media profile.
Current Members:¶
Lars Bärring, lars
.barring@smhi .se Stuart Chalk schalk@unf.edu (Secretary)
Steven Emmerson emmerson
.steven@gmail .com Jeremy Frey j
.g .frey@soton .ac .uk Maximilian Gruber maximilian
.gruber@ptb .de Gyorgy Gyomai gyrogy
.gyomai@oecd .org Pascal Heus pascal@codata.org (Chair)
Janet Miles janet
.miles@oiml .org Toshihiro Ashino ashino@acm.org / ashino.t@gmail.com
Richard Hartshorn richard
.hartshorn@canterbury .ac .nz Simon Hodson simon@codata.org
Michael Ward m.ward@elsevier.com
Jan Martin Keil jan
_martin .keil@dlr .de Sirko Schindler sirko
.schindler@dlr .de
Former Members:¶
Bob Hanisch
Simon Cox
Joachim Meier