| NSF Org: |
DBI Division of Biological Infrastructure |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | March 25, 2015 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | March 25, 2015 |
| Award Number: | 1500306 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Peter McCartney
DBI Division of Biological Infrastructure BIO Directorate for Biological Sciences |
| Start Date: | April 1, 2015 |
| End Date: | March 31, 2018 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $139,682.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $139,682.00 |
| 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): | ADVANCES IN BIO INFORMATICS |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): | |
| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.074 |
ABSTRACT
The data generated by environmental research are highly valuable, not only because of the cost of research but also because they are irreplaceable and needed for understanding change. A major challenge for all research entities is the management of this digital asset and associated information for maintaining its value. This challenge is complex in nature, covering not only the collection and storage of data, but also the creation of relevant (and sufficient) information about the data (metadata), such that they can be re-used broadly. Several environmental data repositories and data management approaches have been developed over the past few years. It is now time to seek input from researchers in the role of data authors and data re-users and data managers, to expansively explore the current operating environment, potential collaboration opportunities, efficiencies of scale, and future community needs for this challenge to be addressed effectively. An initial workshop will allow these stakeholders to share their expertise, experience and future requirements with their colleagues. The output from this initial exercise will then feed into a second session, which will result in strategic recommendations detailing the activities needed to create a collaborative and efficient data management infrastructure capable of supporting future environmental science research endeavors.
Most current environmental data repositories fulfill specific needs or objectives, i.e., archiving and disseminating data from a project, network of research sites, institution, a specific funding source, or to accompany paper publications. Envisioning a sustained Scientific Data Infrastructure (SDI), and with the goal of providing high quality data to researchers, policy makers and the general public, this project concentrates on data repositories and current curation practices as an integral part of this vision. Within this scope and in the context of environmental research data management, original goals and objectives of single repositories will be re-evaluated, efficiencies of scale identified, a cost-benefit analyses for some centralized services attempted, and new, sustainable collaborations conceptualized. Specifically, data curators from a range of environmental research fields, data aggregators, tool developers, computer scientists and environmental scientists (both data providers and users) will be brought together for an informed dialog which draws on this broad collective experience. A preliminary information-gathering phase will describe the characteristics of each repository to inform the discussion at two subsequent community workshops. The first workshop will identify new collaboration and curation strategies that also cater to the currently underserved single investigators and move environmental data from "available" to "usable", in order to accelerate scientific inquiry. The second workshop will examine these strategies further, and develop one or more alternative, community-vetted roadmaps for research information management with the goal of more efficiently and sustainably utilizing NSF investments. In summary, these workshops will produce a strategic implementation plan outlining one or more options for a sustained environmental data management infrastructure capable of accelerating scientific inquiry, serve all contributing investigators (data producers) and provide the basis for education and outreach activities in a cost effective approach. Data management needs are fairly well understood. Organizational, personnel and management structures are not. Hence, the plan will focus on these challenges while also considering workforce development. A website for this project will be established at http://sedicollaborative.org.
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.
Research data are considered an important product that needs to be preserved and made available to other researchers and the general public for many reasons. Historical data are irreplaceable documenting a changing environment, data may be reused for a different analyses saving the expense of collecting them again, and they can represent proof of correct research results. Several small community data repositories have been established to accommodated the need for data archiving and publishing in the environmental sciences. This project brought together representatives from these data repositories in a series of community workshops for an informed dialog on repository collaboration and evaluating costs and values of data publishing (Return on Investment or ROI) for these repositories.
The first workshop produced a series of recommendation for data curation practices and the underlying technology to improve interoperability. They are intended to be general enough so that they may persist through time, but they should be revisited and evolve as repositories and their communities mature.
The second workshop produced a list of criteria for estimating the value of curated and published data. The criteria were then ranked in importance and their feasibility for obtaining reliable measures. Repositories may use these criteria to determine the most efficient measures of how valuable their data are.
Last Modified: 06/21/2018
Modified by: Corinna Gries
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