The CODATA Task Group on Digital Representation of Units of Measurement (DRUM) and colleagues from the CIPM’s Digital SI Task Group have published a comment article in Nature.

‘Stop squandering data: make units of measurement machine-readable’ describes some of the pervasive challenges caused by “sloppy or missing units”.  The current activity around FAIR cannot succeed unless the fundamental issue of consistent, machine-readable description of units in data is also addressed.

The article provides an overview of current activities globally, the role of DRUM and the Digital SI Expert Group. It includes a Call for Action ‘to create interoperable data with machine-readable quantities and units of measurement’ and invites colleagues to contact the Task Group to get involved.

Hanisch et al., ‘Stop squandering data: make units of measurement machine-readable’, Nature 605, 222-224 (2022): https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01233-w

Coming up at SciDataCon (part of International Data Week) is ’The Units Summit @ SciDataCon’ which features three sessions on DRUM, on current units infrastructures and on the BIPM activities for interoperable metrology and the Digital SI.  Come along, find out more and get involved!