| NSF Org: |
OAC Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | July 11, 2013 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | July 11, 2013 |
| Award Number: | 1255849 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Robert Chadduck
rchadduc@nsf.gov (703)292-2247 OAC Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) CSE Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering |
| Start Date: | July 15, 2013 |
| End Date: | June 30, 2016 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $102,759.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $102,759.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
21 N PARK ST STE 6301 MADISON WI US 53715-1218 (608)262-3822 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
680 N Park St Madison WI US 53706-1413 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | Data Cyberinfrastructure |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.070 |
ABSTRACT
CIF21 DIBBs: Building international data sharing capacity in lake sciences, with implications for the broader environmental science community
Environmental research, and science in general, are being transformed by the unprecedented amount and diversity of spatial and temporal data available for analysis. Hosts of new sensors and experimental techniques are driving this data flood. And while the transformational potential on science is understood, the reality of managing the data flows from collection through to analysis, especially integration with other data, insights, plus education, and outreach has not kept pace. A continuum of approaches exist for data archiving, publishing and sharing: from the single investigator with limited technical skills, or limited personal interest in archiving or sharing data, to the highly structured ecological observatory with an IT (Information Technology) department and the explicit goal of archiving data and making them accessible to researchers who were not involved in the sampling (e.g. NEON). Grassroots organizations like GLEON (the Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network) share many similarities with the single investigator approach without major IT support, but recognize data sharing as a mandatory first step to answer pressing research questions addressing climate and land-use change, diminishing ecosystem services, and large scale disruptions of ecosystem functioning on a global scale. It is proposed to collaborate with other groups invested in the area of environmental observations data management and develop a design and implementation plan for a data publishing and sharing system that will address not only GLEON?s needs but also those of environmental research communities that find themselves in a similar place along the outlined data management continuum, of which there is a growing number. We will leverage GLEON?s experience, organizational structure, community trust, and recognized need for data sharing, Our approach will be primarily based on deploying and testing technology components created by CUAHSI, DataONE, LTER, and DataTurbine in a prototype setting and to assess their applicability in the GLEON community through targeted focus groups. The intellectual merits are twofold. First, prototyping and testing of existing technologies by our community members will provide valuable feedback to the original creators of the technology. Second, and most importantly, through our efforts, our community will develop a design and implementation plan for a data publishing and sharing system that is not only well conceived and sustainable, but owned and manageable by our community members, with potential implementation by dozens, if not hundreds, of ecological observatories. Broader impact: This community is an international and multi-cultural grassroots organization based on the recognized need for collaboration, as very typical in the current and future landscape of environmental research approaches. Therefore, a community level data publishing and sharing design and implementation plan that considers aspects typical for these research approaches will benefit many other international grassroots research and education collaborations, and the approach will be transformational in developing such global infrastructures. Aspects of primary importance are governance, sustainability, buy-in, trust, appropriate credit, and last but not least, usability. Finally, during the evaluation phase many researchers and students will be exposed to and trained in the use of technology that is currently available to them, even if in the end it is not considered appropriate for the entire community.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON) is a grassroots network that conducts innovative science by sharing and interpreting lake observation data to understand, predict and communicate the role and response of lakes in a changing global environment (www.gleon.org). This NSF DIBBs project aimed to explore the feasibility of collaboration between GLEON and large data infrastructure providers in order to store, share, and visualize sensor and other lake data. Collaboration with the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Sciences (CUAHSI) and the Data Observation Network for Earth (DataONE) was initiated. Their respective software was installed on local servers and used for demonstration and training workshops held at GLEON meetings. The first goal, testing the existing technologies and providing feedback to our collaborators was very successful and several GLEON datasets are published in the respective systems. As a second goal, GLEON members were able to better define needs, requirements and obstacles to data publishing and sharing within this international grassroots organization, and beyond. It was recognized that GLEON operates as a Socio-Technical system where relevant organizational policies, effective collaboration, as well as information management, the supporting technologies, and computing resources are integral components of the network fabric. On one hand GLEON is providing the platform for building interpersonal trust, developing mechanisms of attributing credit, and for interdisciplinary collaboration which allowed for tremendous progress in the area of data exchange among its members. Data are re-used and re-combined for new research questions that were not anticipated during data collection. However, data are prepared manually for each synthesis project and each research projects reinvents the process of data gathering, data cleaning, and data harmonization. Furthermore, the current approach of querying the community of data producers for certain data is successful but cumbersome and will always miss data that are not offered due to lack of time, resources, or interest at the local observatory. This project determined that a good approach is a registry of metadata, i.e., a system of local systems for data discovery and access that honors local skills, policies, requirements, and resources while making more data discoverable and available. A central data storage approach as was originally proposed here is likely to fail in an international network of data producers.
Last Modified: 09/30/2016
Modified by: Corinna Gries
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