2010 OCB Summer Workshop

2010 OCB Summer Workshop

Cyndy Chandler will represent the BCO-DMO at this workshop and present a poster addressing the proposed NSF Data Policy requirement for a 1-2 page data management plan.  The poster will illustrate how elements of such a data management plan can provide necessary information to support interfaces to data managed by BCO-DMO.

Poster Abstract:

In anticipation of the changes expected to be made in Fall 2010 to the National Science Foundation (NSF) Data Reporting Policy, staff members from the Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO) have prepared some guidelines for the two-page data management plan that will be required with every NSF proposal.  The guidelines are general enough to be used with any NSF Division of Ocean Sciences (OCE) proposal and we will demonstrate how following better data management practices early in a cruise-based project can facilitate data access in subsequent phases of the project. The aim is to make contribution of data and metadata as easy as possible.  For ocean research cruises, a minimum of five products are recommended to document a cruise: the basic cruise metadata including a unique cruise identifier; the cruise operations report including science party manifest; the scientific sampling event log; the navigation data (to generate the cruise track plot) and the data inventory.  The metadata that accompany data sets managed by the BCO-DMO provide the supporting documentation describing the ‘who, what, where, when, how, and why’ of research cruises.  The metadata records are used to power the BCO-DMO interfaces to improve access to the data sets and to ensure accurate use of those data in collaborative research. Because it is impossible to resample environmental data, proper management of those data sets is especially important to realize the full potential of the investment of federal agency funds and to enable the synthesis of time-series collections.

Ocean biogeochemistry and marine ecosystem research projects are inherently interdisciplinary and benefit from improved access to well-documented data.  In addition to supporting the Ocean Carbon & Biogeochemistry (OCB) research community, one goal of the BCO-DMO is to facilitate regional, national, and international data and information exchange. Improved data sharing practices are important to the continued exploration of research themes that are central to the OCB community, and are essential to interdisciplinary and international collaborations that address complex, global research themes.