LTER Site Byte

LTER Site: Andrews LTER

Contributor: Suzanne Remillard and Don Henshaw (Aug 02, 2005)

Site Byte:

Information Management (IM) folks at the Andrews Experimental Forest have spent the past year preparing for the mid-term review. We are pleased to announce that we had a very successful and positive review in mid-July. Our Information Management System was emphasized as one of the exemplary pieces to the Andrews LTER. Descriptions of our system are online at http://www.fsl.orst.edu/lter/research/component/infomgt.cfm?topnav=63

The IM team is led by Don Henshaw who has been heavily involved with cross-site synthesis and network-level efforts, and has also guided site preparation for the mid-term review. Gody Spycher continues to populate our SQLServer metadata database with remaining core and other legacy databases, develop programs for QA and other maintenance functions, and work with scientists to cleanup and analyze data. Gody plans on retiring within the next year, and we will begin to strategize about IM at the Andrews without Gody. Suzanne Remillard is recently hired as the Andrews LTER Information Manager and will begin taking over duties from Gody. Suzanne continues as the database administrator for the combined ClimDB/HydroDB effort, and actively maintains our web pages and attends to many data processing and IM tasks. Theresa Valentine continues to work with spatial data and is incorporating the HJ Andrews LTER spatial data into our general data catalog Theresa has also received seed money from Forest Service R&D to continue development of WatershedDB, a collection of spatial data for HydroDB sites including research area and watershed boundaries, gaging station locations, stream networks, and DEMs. Theresa also published a new, updated Andrews Experimental Forest map (http://www.fsl.orst.edu/lter/about/site/map.cfm?topnav=157).

Andrews Databases Online / EML: We currently have 130 databases (metadata and data) online and available. This includes over 500 data tables. Of these databases, 18 are spatial databases, with 50 more in preparation (300 coverages / Shape files). Our maintenance tasks are heavy, with over 100 tables updated annually. In addition, we receive about 10 new databases per year. We have only 6 databases left to migrate to SQLServer and an additional 40 legacy databases not online (to be migrated too). Our metadata database dynamically generates EML, and also produces downloadable PDF files for each study database. We are now contributing EML to the LTER Metacat through dynamic harvest list and EML generation scripts. Our next major focus is to review our EML with respect to accepted syntax and best practices, and revise our EML generation accordingly.

Reservation program: Gody and Suzanne have developed a new reservation system for the Andrews field station. This system not only enables the tracking of users, but also allows for the management of billing. There is also an online reservation request form.

Andrews goes wireless and adds spread spectrum telemetry
Fred Bierlmaier, the on-site Andrews system administrator, maintains the site Local Area Network (LAN), local web server, wireless LAN, digital radio and spread spectrum telemetry networks, telephone communications, and local personal computers. Fred recently installed the wireless LAN which links the dormitories, cafeteria, shop, and director's residence to the wired LAN with a wireless bridge. Wireless access points are also installed in the conference hall and throughout most of the compound, and access points are planned for the classroom and library. A telemetry system based on 900 megahertz spread spectrum radios was installed in 2004 to access specific study data coming from data loggers on a nearby watershed.
LTER Graduate Student Collaborative Symposium: The first LTER Graduate Student Collaborative Research Symposium was held on April 13th through the 17th at H. J. Andrews LTER. This symposium was created in order to facilitate future graduate student interaction and participation in the broader community of LTER scientists, as well as to stimulate graduate student engagement in comparative and collaborative research efforts. There were a total of 66 graduate students representing 24 United States LTER sites and 11 students from international LTER sites (representing China, Mongolia, South Africa, Austria, Czech Republic, Brazil, Mexico and Switzerland). There were also 2 invited speakers (Dr. Whendee Silver and Dr. Scott Collins), 2 post-docs, 1 undergraduate, and multiple LTER information managers in attendance. Overall, there were 71 presentations (including LTER site review presentations and personal research presentations) and 13 training and collaborative workshops. The workshops in addition to being very informative also sparked at least five long-term cross-site collaborations. These collaborations are using long-term datasets that are available from LTER sites and will be used for cross-site comparison and eventually appearing in peer-reviewed publications. The most rewarding aspect of the event at its close was the feeling that we are not simply working at individual LTER sites but that we are all part of a large and warm community—an LTER network.

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