THE USA IM LTER CASE: A different story

Melendez, 2011

OVERVIEW

The role of Information Management in the evolution of Informatics: two perspectives About Informatics and Information

Management Concepts Two sources for one story: goals, issues

solutions your book an LTER information management paper

LUQ LTER CaseMelendez, 2011

TWO WORDS ONE CONCEPT?

INFORMATICS (pp 14 in Reddy 2009): “discipline of science which

investigates the structure and property (not specific content) of scientific information as well as the regularities of scientific information activity, its theory, history, methodology and organization” (1967) or the

“interdisciplinary study of the design, application, use and impact of information technology” (2008 on) (pp 16)

INFORMATION MANAGEMENT (Wikipedia) is the collection and

management of information from one or more sources and

the distribution of that information to one or more audiences.

This sometimes involves those who have a stake in, or a right to that information.

Management means the organization of and control over the structure, processing and delivery of information.

Observe that while one studies the

information the other includes the

information per se, and

that while one studies the design of the information the other one includes the design of the

structure

Melendez, 2011

IM/ITIT/IM

Earth Science

Earth Science

Computer Science

Computer Science

Figure 5b. Computer science perspective. A computer science point of view where information management is considered closer to domain science.

Figure 5a. Domain Science Perspective. An earth science point of view where information technology is considered close to information system and computer science.

Ambiguity in Understanding Roles: IT and IM

Baker and Millerand, 2007

What is Informatics?

DomainSciences

SocialSciences

InformationSciences

Informatics is an applied science, an interdisciplinary field of study at the

intersection of social sciences, information sciences, and domain

science.

Baker and Millerand, 2007

ECOINFORMATICS: TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES BY R A TEDDY

On ILTER: …”has the unique ability to design collaborative, site

base projects, compare data from a global network of sites and detect global trends. ILTER members also have the expertise in the collection, management and analysis of long-term environmental data” pp 31

On KNB (Knowledge Network for Bio-Complexity) “We have conceived of the KNB as a mechanism for

scientists to discover, access, interpret, analyze, and synthesize the wealth of data that is collected by ecological and environmental scientists nationally (and eventually internationally) pp 46 - 47

Melendez, 2011

ENRICHING THE NOTION OF DATA CURATION IN E-SCIENCE: DATA MANAGING AND INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURING IN THE LONG TERM ECOLOGICAL

On data curation related to data sharing by drawing on an ethnographic study of one of

the longest-running efforts at long-term consistent data collection with open data sharing in an environment of interdisciplinary collaboration.

On the continuous and historical role of the LTER information managers through data care work and information

infrastructure development.

http://interoperability.ucsd.edu/publications/Melendez, 2011

Data Curation* in e-science or cyberifrastructure

• data collection with open data sharing in an environment of interdisciplinary collaboration

• large-scale science carried out through distributed global collaborations

• parallel to providing a substrate for the successful access, sharing and (re)use of data collections

• archive and preserve exponentially increasing volumes of primary data for contemporary discovery and future re-use

The Goal or drives: (from Helena Karasti et al., 2006)

From The International Journal of Digital Curation Issue 2, Volume 4 ,2009: data curation is defined as a set of repeated and repeatable activities focusing on tending data and creating data products within a particular arena. “ways of organizing, displaying, and repurposing preserved data.”

Melendez, 2011

Study of inherent structure of ecological information

• management and analysis of ecological information

• facilitate and expedite large scale ecological research

• define entities and natural processes with language common to both humans and computers

• aims to facilitate environmental research and management

The Goals or drives: (as defined in the Reddy, 2009)

Melendez, 2011

THE CHALLENGE: (FROM HELENA KARASTI ET AL., 2006)

Table III. The extended temporal horizon of ongoing data managing in LTER (pp 332)

Recovering legacy datasets

Attending to ongoing data collection

Designing for the future

‘‘I was trying to document a lot of historic stuff because the PI [principal investigator] was coming on with Alzheimer’s and I knew that he was going to retire. I had a series of interviews with him and I got incredible documentation for these early corporate data.’’ (IM)

‘‘Getting scientists’ data into our system from the very beginning...whether it is to help them with data entry forms, setting up data entry programs, all the way from QA/QC programs to getting it archived into our system and accessible on the Internet.’’ (IM)

‘‘We envision also that we’ll also be adding the EML [Ecological Metadata Language]... and sort ofoften go back and forth between whether we want to do that from the ASCII files or the database...but at any rate we’ll somehow make EML available dynamically on theInternet to the group atlarge.’’ (IM)

Historical/legacy Immediate/near term

Long-term

THE IMPEDIMENTS: (AS DEFINED IN THE REDDY, 2009)

The infrastructure for this network must deal with major impediments to synthesizing data on ecology and the environment:

Data is widely dispersed Data is heterogeneous, and Synthetic analysis tools are needed

Melendez, 2011

Study of inherent structure of ecological information• to create and apply computer technology

• developing computer databases and algorithms

• integrates environmental and information

• developing ways to access, integrate databases of environmental information, and develop new algorithms enabling different datasets to be combined to test ecological hypotheses

The solution: (as defined in the Reddy, 2009)

Melendez, 2011

a cooperative, federated database system approach to organizing information

management in LTER (Baker et al., 2000)SITE LEVEL NETWORK LEVEL

• ongoing, retrospective–prospective data management,• intensive data contextualization and description,• judicious technology design

• collaborative information infrastructure and metadata standards work.

The Solution: the site – network model

Melendez, 2011

The new ERA: decade of synthesis and the accumulation of more than 20 years of data forces the scientific community to see IM as their necessary tool:

From a mandate (from NSF)a need for data depository

a need for data depository a need for data synthesis

Equivalent to the trajectory of data accumulation and growth and the software tools to manage them

Proprietary software (MS) from Excel access

Open sourceaccess mysql

The Solution: the site – network model

Melendez, 2011

LONG TERM ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH NETWORK

US LTER since 1980A social network:• 2100 participants • 26 site biomes• Network Office

A technological network:• 26 25 information managers• Loose network supporting

local site data repositories• Sites work in collaboration on

Network Information System• Instrumenting the ecosystem

site network

LTER: http://lternet.edu

LUQ LTER CASE

4 LTER proposals since 1988

Information Management began in 1989

Evolution and Development of an Information Management system the Web site as a window to the site’s Information

Management System (IMS) the website as the IMS framework

Close working collaboration with the LTER Network Office (LNO)

Close working collaboration with the information managers: conceptual framework

Melendez, 2011

EVENTS IN THE LTER

Data Archiving Data Integration

1989 on 1995 on 2001 on

Need to team up

and publish metadata

Organizing, cataloguing; Develop LUQ documentation

standards and protocols

Needto

document

Need to have

searchable data in the

web site

Documenting and publishing the data

on our first web

Decadal Plan and the adoption of

the EML standard

HISTORY OF LUQ LTER

Melendez, 2009

HISTORYLUQ LTER ONLINE DATA SETS

19921993199720002002200620082009

0 15 30 3574

104 117 127

0

75

4

On the Web Not Online

Melendez, 2009

LUQ LTER PROTOCOLS

At the site level Data gathering Data entry Data quality control Data sharing

At the network level EML: Ecological Metadata Language Specialized network databases:

climdb/hydrodb, GIS (under development)

Melendez, 2011

PROGRESSLUQ EML METADATA PACKAGES DEVELOPED

2005 2007 2009

9875

46

021

65

EML L 3-4 EML L5 QC

Melendez, 2011

Dataset Design -PI

-Information ManagerData Collection Data Entry

Metadata Preparation

Quality Control and Assurance

Review

Data Publication on WWW

Revision

Revision

DATA FILING PROTOCOL*

HISTORY

Melendez, 2009* Diagram graphics was designed by J. Porter in 2006

THE LUQ WEB SITE

Data

Local Use

Knowledge production

CommunityReuse

Data Production

Baker and Chandler, DSR, 2008

Modes of Knowledge Production

Data DeliveryNew PracticesCollaborative ResearchInterdisciplinaryData Exchange

Contemporary: Mode 2

PublicationsReportsIndividual ResearchDisciplinary

Traditional: Mode 1

OU

R V

ISIO

N

LUQ NEW IMS FRAMEWORK

THE LUQ NETWORK CONNECTION

US Network: EML, Metacat, (data harvestin

Outreach: Schoolyard ILTER: China, Malaysia (The Kepler

Example) Other Networks: ULTRA, CTFS

Data managerInformation managerInformaticist (ie physicist, geneticist)Informatician (ie statistician)Informologist (ie biologist)Informateer (ie mouseketeer)Informatics specialist (ie on-the-job training)Data librarian (ie information & library sciences)Data scientist (ie data & domain expertise)Data curator (ie with data repository)

What is the name for those who work with data?

Information ProfessionalsBaker and Chandler, DSR, 2008