LTER Site Byte

LTER Site: California Current Ecosystem

Contributor: Karen Baker (Aug 27, 2005)

Site Byte:

In its first year as an LTER site, the CCE information management effort focused on building technical, organizational, and social infrastructure. The use of mail, storage and server facilities are coordinated centrally within the Integrative Oceanography Department at SIO/UCSD. Participation in an Ocean Informatics Environment is providing a contemporary approach to training as one dimension of design team and working group activities.

Initial projects included design of a web site (http://ccelter.sio.ucsd.edu) and establishment of the LTER network virtual pointer (http://cce.lternet.edu). A new shipboard organization scheme has been deployed, centered around event numbers as a long-term integrative element. Work to establish dictionaries and controlled vocabularies is proceeding in parallel with design of metadata forms. From discussions, an emerging common language includes critical informatics terms such as data types, core data, metadata, and integrative indexes. A site software and data survey is being conducted as a part of the process of establishing a culture of LTER data practices. This represents an opportunity for learning about existing data handling within local environments.

Collaborative local activities included coordination with the Palmer LTER, the Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System (SCCOOS), the Palmer LTER and the California Cooperative Oceanographic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) program which provides an ongoing 50 year field time series for a grid encompassing the CCE sampling lines as well as with the Palmer LTER. As LTER Network participants, we contributed to several working groups at the 2005 annual IM meeting: Dictionary Process Unit Repository; SiteDB and Web Design; and Community Process. In collaboration with science studies participants, we are working to open up discursive data practices and technical perspectives by incorporating collaborative design as one element of focus for a comparative environmental research study. We are using this approach as a powerful tool to address immediate needs and choices within information management in general and standards’ development in particular.

Web design by Wade Sheldon, Georgia Coastal Ecosystems LTER