| NSF Org: |
OCE Division Of Ocean Sciences |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | July 16, 2014 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | October 10, 2018 |
| Award Number: | 1435578 |
| Award Instrument: | Continuing Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Michael Sieracki
OCE Division Of Ocean Sciences GEO Directorate for Geosciences |
| Start Date: | September 1, 2014 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2020 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $8,496,720.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $9,600,001.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
FY 2015 = $3,006,579.00 FY 2016 = $2,081,600.00 FY 2017 = $1,846,801.00 FY 2018 = $900,001.00 |
| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
266 WOODS HOLE RD WOODS HOLE MA US 02543-1535 (508)289-3542 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
266 Woods Hole Road Woods Hole MA US 02543-1535 |
| 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): |
LONG TERM ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH, BIOLOGICAL OCEANOGRAPHY, Chemical Oceanography, ANT Organisms & Ecosystems, Polar Cyberinfrastructure, OCE SPECIAL PROGRAMS, EarthCube, SEES Ship Operations |
| Primary Program Source: |
01001516DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001617DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001718DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001819DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 0100XXXXDB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT |
| 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): | 47.050 |
ABSTRACT
The Earth System is changing rapidly as a result of growing pressure from human activities that are changing important components of the System. The oceans act as the flywheel of the climate system, playing major roles in the climate, the water cycle, the carbon cycle, global energy budgets, and sea level rise. Study and understanding of this component of the Earth System requires integrated multi-disciplinary investigations with access to oceanographic data of biological, chemical, geological, and physical origin. The Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO) was created to serve PIs funded by the NSF Biological and Chemical Oceanography Sections and the Division of Polar Programs Antarctic Organisms and Ecosystems Program as a facility where marine biogeochemical and ecological data and information developed in the course of scientific research can be managed and made publicly available. BCO-DMO provides integrated chemical, biological and physical data inventories from a number of large and intermediate-sized programs, as well as single investigator projects. BCO-DMO also provides scientific investigators the opportunity to explore complex and multifaceted datasets and supports cross-disciplinary collaboration to address pressing environmental questions, problems, and challenges that are exacerbated with the increasing pace of climate change. The BCO-DMO collection of datasets contributed by researchers funded by NSF and others is a publicly available resource accessible via the BCO-DMO website. BCO-DMO supports synthesis and modeling activities, reuse of oceanographic data for new research endeavors, availability of "real data" for classroom use by teachers and students at K-12 and college level, and provides decision-support field data for policy-relevant issues. BCO-DMO outreach activities include participation in community training courses and workshops both national and international, and help to foster long-term collaborative partnerships between data management professionals and research investigators. These outreach activities reduce community barriers by fostering the sharing of ideas among synergistic, but otherwise independent research groups. BCO-DMO actively participates in the exchange of knowledge at oceanographic and informatics meetings, an important mechanism by which standards development and adoption occurs.
The primary goal of the BCO-DMO data management repository is to manage existing and new datasets from NSF funded individual scientific investigators and collaborative groups of investigators, and to make the data available online. The BCO-DMO data management system is composed of a metadata database and the distributed client-server JGOFS/GLOBEC data system, plus text-based and map-based user interfaces and support for machine clients to access the information and data available from the repository. The office works with principal investigators and other data contributors to support all phases of the data lifecycle; maintain an inventory of projects, deployments, and datasets; generate standards-compliant metadata records as required by federal agencies; promote compliance with the NSF Ocean Sciences data policy; ensure submission of data to national data centers for archive; support and encourage data synthesis by providing enhanced data discovery and access systems; facilitate interoperability among distributed data repositories; and facilitate regional, national, and international data and information exchange. The office participates in the development and use of open-source, standards-based technologies that enable interoperable data systems to exchange data and information that will foster next-generation research in all disciplines. As the analysis of ocean processes becomes more and more sophisticated, multidisciplinary data integration will also grow more complex. BCO-DMO fosters information sharing and is committed to being a fundamental component of the ocean science research infrastructure without which the goals of existing and future ocean research programs cannot be met.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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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 Biological and Chemical Oceanography and Data Management Office (BCO-DMO) is an open access digital data repository created to assemble, curate, and publicly serve data and associated products from NSF-funded and related oceanographic research. The project contributes to geoscience research infrastructure by assisting researchers in sharing their project output, educating them on data management best practices, and curating a catalog of high-quality data for use in research, policy, and education.
During the 2014-2020 award period, the project successfully transitioned three PIs, during which time it processed and published over 3,300 datasets of diverse types from over 1,000 funded projects, submitted by over 1,400 contributors from physical, chemical, ecological and biogeochemical sub-domains.
In addition to core operations, the project leveraged synergistic collaborations (e.g., NSF EarthCube program), to explore and adopt technologies and practices that benefit the scientific user community. In 2017, the office participated in its first mid-term review and subsequently took action to address review recommendations. This prompted an assessment of existing infrastructure, and development of strategies and roadmaps for improving or redesigning several system components. Outcomes described here improve repository infrastructure; data discovery and access; and data management literacy.
The project developed resources to lower barriers to data sharing and engage researchers in data management. For example, in 2014, the project created a Data Management Plan (DMP) template to assist researchers in fulfilling proposal requirements and to better anticipate data management needs. The office also constituted a standing advisory committee in 2018 to ensure development of strategies remain responsive to the needs of the oceanographic research community. Community outreach was conducted at several scientific meetings to gather user needs. This informed publication of resources such as the BCO-DMO Quick Guide to aid researchers in submitting their project data, and tutorials on new tool use. Formalized data science training curricula was administered to increase data management literacy within the oceanographic community. The project also collaborated with academic institutions where the BCO-DMO is leveraged in curricula.
BCO-DMO also collaborated to share data for use in marine microbial ecology research, where research requires access to environmental data curated separately from genetic information, by providing access to its data through formalized pipelines that are reusable for other domains. The project also contributed to development and adoption of technologies and best practices through working groups, synergistic projects, and volunteer service within the Research Data Alliance, AGU, EarthCube, and Earth Science Information Partners.
In evaluating existing software, we identified a need for a more flexible way to move data through submission, processing and archive. To address this, we adopted a method for packaging data and metadata together that allows all BCO-DMO software a shared, common way of accessing data. This strategy dovetailed with our newly developed and implemented data processing tool which improves transportation of data to, from, and within BCO-DMO systems; supports transparency and traceability of activities; and improves efficiency and consistency of data processing. BCO-DMO implemented NOAA’s ERDDAP tool for improved visualizing, subsetting and downloading data in various formats. For mitigating costly future software replacements, BCO-DMO migrated knowledge about its data into a knowledge graph. This technique turns traditional software code into data that can be preserved, altered, and extended with emerging community needs without incurring exorbitant costs.
During this award period, we identified a need to update our website, the primary discovery and access point of the BCO-DMO data catalog. Using guidance from NSF and our user community, we began a full website redesign to improve discovery, content delivery, and access of our data holdings. to be implemented during the next award period). We also began tracking analytics on activity across the BCO-DMO data catalog website.
To facilitate data publication and researcher attribution, the project implemented use of dataset Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs). Metadata associated with datasets and investigators were expanded to include persistent identifiers for people, funding sources, related publications, and maps that detail data geospatial extent and sampling locations. These additions enable distributed, interoperable data systems to exchange data and information and provide improved context for data interpretation and reuse that foster next-generation research in all disciplines.
Responding to recommendations for more accurate search capability, the project implemented open source search software to improve search result, and publishing metadata (schema.org) on its website to increase the discoverability of BCO-DMO data on the web(e.g., by Google).
These activities bring the BCO-DMO repository in alignment with current data science best practices, and take advantage of state-of-the-art technologies that allow the repository to remain agile and adapt to future needs of the oceanographic research community. The resulting infrastructure and services help lower the barriers to data sharing and improve the interoperability, discovery, and access of opceanographic data; facilitating integration of diverse datasets to enable researchers to achieve a deeper understanding of ocean ecological and biogeochemical systems.
Last Modified: 12/30/2020
Modified by: Danie Kinkade
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