Executive
Summary (Barbara Benson
(NTL) and John Porter (VCR))
Representatives
from all 24 LTER sites attended and actively participated in the 2001 LTER
Information Managers Meeting in Madison, WI. Other attendees included James
Brunt, David Blankman, Owen Eddins, Troy Maddux, Bill Michener, and John
VandeCastle from the Network Office , Judy Cushing and Erik Ordway from the
Forest Canopy project, Matt Jones from NCEAS, Dick Olson from the Oakridge
National Laboratory, Jens Schumacher from the German Biodiversity project at
the University of Jena, and Phyllis Adams from the National Park Service.
The major
themes of this meeting were:
Status reports were
presented on the LTER Network Information System
(NIS) including the following components:
the LTER Intranet page, personnel
database, SiteDB, Data Table of Contents (DTOC),
All Site Bibliography, ClimDB/HydroDB.
The NET staff plans to have the personnel database, DTOC, and All Site
Bibliography updated for all sites this fall.
Sites were asked for their cooperation in these efforts. Don Henshaw (AND) is undertaking the further development of the
intersite climate database (ClimDB) and a parallel database for hydrologic
data (HydroDB).
Matt Jones (NCEAS)
presented an overview of the Knowledge
Network for Biocomplexity
(KNB) project. KNB is a collaboration
among NCEAS, LTER, and SDSC to develop the technological infrastructure to
promote data accessibility, synthesis and analysis, and data preservation. Three products under development were highlighted:
Metacat (a metadata catalog that supports storage, search, and presentation),
Ecological Metadata Language (EML; an XML schema for ecological metadata),
and Morpho (a software tool to create and manage data and metadata).
The participants spent
a significant portion of the meeting discussing metadata
standards and implementation. Matt Jones (NCEAS) and Peter McCartney
(CAP, metadata working group leader) reported on the status of the Ecological
Metadata Language (EML) 2.0 which is nearing completion and is currently available
in a beta version. The two main tasks for LTER sites are
1. The
restructuring of existing metadata content to EML (A site’s metadata do not
need to be managed in EML format but must be easily translatable into EML.)
2.
The
development of new metatdata content to be compliant
We identified 3 metadata
working groups based on the form of existing metadata: non-parsable,
parsable, or stored in a relational
database. These groups are charged with documenting the different kinds of
needs across sites, the tools needed, and the costs for each metadata type
(both for restructuring content to EML and developing new content) of producing
a body of metadata.
Recognizing the need
for information management support for cross-site
synthetic research, we discussed ways to coordinate with the principal
investigators in these efforts. During
June14-16, 2001, investigators interested in cross-site synthesis for net
primary productivity met with some information managers to review what leads
to successful cross-site synthesis (Advancing the Sharing and Synthesis of
Ecological Data: Guidelines for Data Sharing and Integration workshop, Benson
(NTL) et al.). A draft of a guidelines document is in preparation along with
a manuscript (“Synthesis in Ecology: Approaches,
Principles, and Procedures”) based on case studies from within LTER and the
broader ecological community. We were
briefed on two upcoming intersite research projects related to species invasions
and biogeochemistry. Concern was expressed
that information managers be included in the planning of these projects and
that these information managers be liaisons for the IM committee.
We established a new
Site Mentoring
and Training subcommittee
(chairs are Susan Stafford (SGS) and John Anderson (JRN)) after discussion
highlighted the needs in this area. In addition to the 3 new LTER sites that
joined the network recently, several of the older sites have had IM personnel
changes in 2001. In some cases, incoming IMs did not have the benefit of any
“on the job” training because the previous IMs had already left the position
at the time of their hire. There was a general consensus that there is inadequate
guidance or training available to new IMs.
Some suggested improvements included 1) the NET Office taking more
responsibility in centralizing information such as a list of tools (databases,
software site licenses, site surveys, and white papers) available to the IMs, 2) an “Orientation” for new IMs (e.g., each
new manager would visit the NET Office where they would be given an orientation
packet of information that would include a checklist of tasks; each new manager
would also be encouraged to visit another LTER site).
Several LTER IMs
(Peter McCartney (CAP), John Porter (VCR), Kristin Vanderbilt (SEV)) have
been involved in international training workshops
for information management. During the past year workshops were held in
Kristen Vanderbilt
(SEV), Emery Boose (HFR), and Don Henshaw (AND) were elected to serve on the IMExec
(along with existing members Barbara Benson (NTL), Peter McCartney (CAP), John
Anderson (JRN), and Susan Stafford (SGS, chair) and James Brunt (NET,
ex-officio). Karen Baker (PAL) and Ned
Gardiner (CWT) rotated off IMExec.
Karen Baker (PAL) led a discussion of various critical tasks to be
performed by IMExec and the assignment of responsibility for these tasks to
individual IMExec members.