LUQ LTER Information Management

Luquillo Experimental Forest Information Management: a Long-Term Ecological

Research system to deposit documented data ready for analysis and synthesis

Mision: To support LUQ’s scientific community and

the community in general in their collaborative research and to actively participate and

be part of the LTER Information Management network wide standing committee (IMC) in our task “to improve and advance information management

technology at the LTER sites and to effectively communicate and

integrate advances in information technology into LTER Science and research.”

What is the LUQ LTER IM System (IMS)?

“…We need similar data: parallel data from different data sets…” - a LUQ LTER Scientist

Astronaut photograph ISS016-E-18385 was acquired on December 23, 2007, with a Kodak 760C digital camera fitted with a 400 mm lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment. The image was taken by the Expedition 16 crew, and is provided by the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17912)

LUQ IMS: ProcessesResearch

Question and Design

Data Structure Design

Data Gathering at

the Field

Data Entry and Report

Data Analysis and synthesis

QC Processes

IM involvement starts

Components of an LTER IMS:People roles: Researchers, technicians, students,

data entry people, scientist coordinators, information managers and coordinators (scientific community ) and administrators

Mechanism to provide periodic trainning and support to the technicians and IM personnel (LTER Network Office)

Information Technology in place: Telecommunication facilities, hardware and software for the entry, quality control processes and analyses of data (technology)

Data and metadata (Science and research)

LTER IMS differ from others systems:Designed to share dataTends to standardize protocols (data collection

and management) to facilitate synthesis at the site as well as at the network level

Deals and preserves long-term data Metadata is the center of system

LUQ LTER People Component  Information Management: full time

information manager, full time data entry person, part time system administrator and a part time student

Research staff: 4 full time technicians, flow of students at the field and laboratories, around 23 scientists , only 8 of which live on the island

Administrative staff: permanent team of 5 persons

Infrastructure : Technology-connectivity

A LAN which is part of a Wide Area Network with a T2 bandwidth

Information Management Office has 2 servers and 5 desktops computers used for the entry and manipulation of data, which communicate with each other as well as with the server.

Other scientists and students’ computers communicate with the server either by direct cable connection or through a wireless network.A LAN is located at the research station

(El Verde Station) that facilitates connection to the Internet and data transfer from dataloggers in the field

Infrastructure : Technology-Online

A Web site to share data and metadata:

http://luq.lternet.edu/

Infrastructure : Technology-Online

Infrastructure : Technology-Depository

An Intranet to archive and process data and metadata:

A LAN at the Institute for Tropical Ecosystem Studies - UPR

A private Plone site for researchers to share and comment on their data files and other information:

http://www.ites.upr.edu:8081/itesplone/projects/

Infrastructure : Data

Ecological data sets:A catalog of the datasets

contains the metadata that describes the data files identifiers, location, researchers, etc.

Data files (structured correctly)

Tables that help to standardize data…all in relational data base management system (RDBMS) format

Infrastructure : Metadata

For the User:Forms in a friendly format

En EML standards for developers:

Now at level 3 – 4Developing to level 5:

attribute level

Online forms (under construction at the LNO)

Network Acitivities:

Climdb/HydrodbThree climdb stationsNine Hydro

En EML standards Now at level 3 – 4Developing to level 5:

attribute level

Infrastructure : Other Services

Online forms available to the LUQ scientific community to:

Request dataDo research with us:

Make reservations at the field station

give us personal information

give us purpose and other details about their research

Online forms that inform investigators about the use of their data

Cyberinfrastructure PlanEmbodies both the

people technologies

Allowscollaborative activities technological solutions

… for data collection, discovery, access, integration and analysis across disciplinary and scale boundaries.

LUQ IMS Evolution

• Currently revised:• Data Catalog (Intranet and Internet)• Data Structures of data files• Naming conventions of plots, etc.

• …and this never ends!