EarthCube Council of Data Facilities:
Enabling advanced cyberinfrastructure for integrative science
Introduction
Digital data repositories provide valuable services to the research community through provision of documentation, veracity, persistence, transparency and reproducibility of the scientific process. Although geoscience domain repositories have traditionally served their own specific communities, the growing need for open, discoverable, well-documented cross-domain data to answer complex Earth system questions is driving increased repository coordination. The Council of Data Facilities (CDF) was formed in 2014 to serve the common goals and needs of geoscience data repositories by facilitating increased coordination, collaboration, and innovation. CDF repositories serve as an effective foundation for EarthCube, and include federally-funded, state, local, international, private, and not-for-profit or academic organizations. Described here are a number of initiatives the CDF has supported since its inception. By providing a forum for collaboration and coordination, the CDF is helping to enable the vision of integrative science and to increase productivity.
Danie Kinkade, BCO-DMO; Steve Diggs, Clivar and CCHDO at Scripps Institution of Oceanography; Christine Laney, NEON; Jessica Hausman, PO.DAAC, NASA; Charles Meertens, UNAVCO; Doug Ertz (presenter) UNAVCO; Tim Ahern, IRIS; Kerstin Lehnert, IEDA; Rebecca Koskela, DataONE; Doug Fils, Ocean Leadership and Adam Shepherd, BCO-DMO, Shelley Stall (AGU);
Eric Lingerfelt (ESSO-UCAR) and Lynne Schreiber (ESSO-UCAR)
�
Shared Infrastructure
The CDF is organizing a workshop in July 2019 for data facilities to develop a plan and roadmap for the creation of shared infrastructure including hardware, software and human resources.
The workshop is supported by the Alliance Testbed Project, which is an EarthCube Integrative Activity.
CoreTrustSeal Certification
A cohort of data repositories has assembled to apply for CoreTrustSeal certification.
This certification demonstrates to a repository’s users and funders that they have been evaluated by an independent authority and endorsed for their trustworthiness.
CDF members are engaged in several active projects to enhance scientific impact and productivity and to increase participation in the American Geophysical Union Coalition Enabling FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) Data Project.
By providing a forum for collaboration and coordination, the CDF is helping to enable the vision of large scale integrative science and to increase productivity.
CDF Member Organizations
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Arctic Data Center
Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO)
Bureau of Economic Geology
CINERGI/DDH
CLIVAR & Carbon Hydrographic Data Office
Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System (CSDMS)
Consortium for Ocean Leadership
Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI)
Continental Scientific Drilling Coordination Office
Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere
Core Research Center
Data Observation Network for Earth (DataONE)
dbSEABED
Digital Rocks Portal
DKIST Data Center
Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP)
Environmental Data Initiative
Fundamental Technologies, LLC
Geological Data Center
Geothermal Data Repository
Information Technology and Systems Center (ITSC)
Integrated Earth Data Applications (IEDA)
International Ocean Discovery Program
IRIS DMC
KNB Data Repository
Magnetics Information Consortium (MagIC)
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON)
National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC)
Neotoma
Ocean Observatories Initiative
OpenTopography
ORNL DAAC
Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (PODAAC)
Rolling Deck to Repository Program (R2R)
UNAVCO
UNIDATA
University of Maryland
University of Rhode Island
World Data System
Project 418 (P418) is an EarthCube pilot software project facilitating the harvesting of standardized published metadata on datasets using schema.org and external vocabularies and provides robust online search tools and electronic notebooks for data discovery over spatial and text/keyword entries.
P418 accelerates data discovery and access from 10 participating facilities, decreases overall time to science, and enables discovery through the Google Dataset Search Tool.
The GeoCODES platform is an expansion of P418 into a full production system and is scheduled for release in Summer 2019.
Next Steps
Project 418 and GeoCODES: An EarthCube computational platform for resource registration, data discovery, and data access
The CDF acknowledges support from the EarthCube Science Support Office which is funded by NSF EarthCube program.
CDF Activities
Since its inception, the CDF has supported a number of initiatives aimed at enhancing scientific productivity; beginning with the Repository Registry, an effort to establish guidelines for publishing standardized repository descriptions, allowing increased discovery of repositories through known registries such as Re3Data. Currently, CDF members are engaged in several active projects to enhance scientific impact and productivity, and to increase alignment with the American Geophysical Union’s Enabling F.A.I.R. (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) Data Project. First, a cohort of data repositories has assembled to apply for CoreTrustSeal, an independent, authoritative certification that demonstrates a repository’s trustworthiness to users and funders. Second, a number of CDF members are participating in the EarthCube pilot project 418/419. Harvesting of standardized published metadata on datasets using schema.org and external vocabularies accelerates data discovery and access from participating facilities and decreases overall time to science. Finally, the CDF is organizing a workshop for data facilities to develop a plan and roadmap for sharing infrastructure including hardware, software and human resources. By providing a forum for collaboration and coordination, the CDF is helping to enable the vision of integrative science and to increase productivity.