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UCSB Presents DataONE
updated: Jul 24, 2012, 3:24 PM
Source: UCSB
In response to the growing need for a way to easily access and analyze massive
amounts of heterogeneous data in the fields of earth and environmental sciences,
UC Santa Barbara's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis
(NCEAS), a core partner in a joint effort to streamline such research, presents
DataONE, the Data Observation Network for Earth. DataONE is capable of providing
researchers access to globally distributed, networked data from a single point
of discovery.
"People have been gathering and synthesizing ecological data for decades," said
NCEAS Director of Informatics Research and Development and DataONE co-
investigator Matthew Jones. Much of the problem -- an issue that NCEAS has been
working to address since its inception in 1995 -- is the time and effort spent
on locating, gathering, checking, and transforming data of interest for
synthesis.
It's an effort that can take researchers nearly a year to complete, as they
examine and analyze various forms of information, from remotely sensed data, to
hundreds of published papers, to historic observational field data.
Simultaneously, these researchers search remote repositories, check for
duplicates, and integrate the information, as they try to find answers to
complex problems that affect both science and society.
"Right now researchers have a hard time even finding the right data to answer
complex environmental questions, and when they do, the work necessary to
integrate really different types of data can be overwhelming," said NCEAS Deputy
Director and DataONE co-investigator Stephanie Hampton. "DataONE provides the
type of platform we need, to propel environmental science into the digital age."
DataONE, through the knowledge and infrastructure provided by library, computer,
and environmental science experts, currently integrates information held by
South Africa National Parks; the Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity; the
Ecological Society of America; Dryad; Oak Ridge National Laboratories
Distributed Active Archive Center, the United States Geological Survey, the Long
Term Ecological Research Network; the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies
of Coastal Oceans; and the California Digital Library. In the coming months,
more organizations are joining as members to make their data accessible.
"In addition to broad data accessibility, DataONE also provides an
interoperability framework that allows these diverse repositories to work
together, share tools, and preserve data," said Jones. DataONE is an open
network and encourages institutions and projects -- with data to share -- to
become members of the federation.
Scientists and other users, meanwhile, will experience massive gains in
efficiency, ease of access, and reductions in redundancy, as the data submitted
to one repository will be easily available from multiple participating
repositories. Users will also have the security of data persistence, thanks to
better data curation and institutional diversity, which ensure that data do not
disappear when organizations shift priorities or lose funding.
The data will also be available to a wide variety of audiences, Jones added. K-
16 educators, those who could use the information as the basis for policy and
management decisions, funders, and stakeholders will also have access to data
from DataONE.
NCEAS is one of three national coordinating nodes, housing large data storage
and computing resources in the UCSB data center at the California Nanosystems
Institute. The two other coordinating nodes are located at University of
Tennessee and University of New Mexico. With the sponsorship of the Davidson
Library, NCEAS plans to move its data center to the North Hall Data Center on
the UCSB campus.
DataONE is an outgrowth of a series of repository efforts, starting with the
creation of the Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity (KNB) in 1998, which is the
repository housing output from NCEAS' synthesis efforts. The KNB repository is
open to submissions from ecologists and environmental scientists throughout the
world, and represents a streamlined way for investigators to preserve and share
their data with colleagues. As a participating node in DataONE, any data added
to the KNB is automatically accessible.
DataONE is supported by a $20 million award, made as part of the National
Science Foundation's (NSF) DataNet program.
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