Enabling long-term oceanographic research: Changing data practices, information management strategies and informatics

Abstract

Interdisciplinary global ocean science requires new ways of thinking about data and data management. With new data policies and growing technological capabilities, datasets of increasing variety and complexity are being made available digitally and data management is coming to be recognized as an integral part of scientific research. To meet the changing expectations of scientists collecting data and of data reuse by others, collaborative strategies involving diverse teams of information professionals are developing. These changes are stimulating the growth of information infrastructures that support multi-scale sampling, data repositories, and data integration. Two examples of oceanographic projects incorporating data management in partnership with science programs are discussed: the Palmer Station Long-Term Ecological Research program (Palmer LTER) and the United States Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (US JGOFS). Lessons learned from a decade of data management within these communities provide an experience base from which to develop information management strategies -short-term and long-term. Ocean Informatics provides one example of a conceptual framework for managing the complexities inherent to sharing oceanographic data. Elements are introduced that address the economies-of-scale and the complexities-of-scale pertinent to a broader vision of information management and scientific research.Keywords: Data collections, Data management, Informatics, Information centers, Information systems, Oceanographic data IntroductionInterdisciplinary global ocean science requires new ways of thinking about data and data management. This paper is about informatics and information environments providing an organizational structure for information management in collaboration with scientific research. The experience of two oceanographic projects integrating data management with their respective science programs is described below. With data systems and partnerships evolving rapidly, the goal of this paper is to review current approaches and issues at hand in order to open up discussion on the future of data arrangements: sustainable repositories and networked systems, information management strategies and the role of local information environments. This lays a foundation for imagining an information model large enough to encompass a whole earth ecosystem -an infrastructure greater than the sum of its parts, incorporating the dynamics of environmental, human and information systems.Data and data practices are central to scientific research. Gold (2007aGold ( , 2007b summarized recently: "To be able to exchange data, communicate it, mine it, reuse it, and review it is essential to scientific productivity, collaboration, and to discovery itself." Taking a step back from the local laboratory, field programs, and data collections, we catch a glimpse of a complex system with multiple components including a web of communities intertwined with networks of data systems. This system co-evolves with a variety of partnerships to be...

Infrastructure Time: Long-term Matters in Collaborative Development

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