Documents — Informatics

This Version 2 of the Ecological Metadata Best Practices document produced by the LTER Network Information Managers.

More than 100 individuals attended a two-day workshop (August 8-9, 1997) entitled Data and Information Management in the Ecological Sciences that was held at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

Objectives of the workshop were to:

EML Best Practices Document from 2004 – the original document never archived has been slightly modified to fix hyperlinks and fix minor typographic errors.

EML Handbook produced by David Blankman and Jeanine McGann ca. 2002.

EML Implementation Workshop 2003 – Sevilleta NWR, NM

Rick Ingersoll An Update to the 1991 – 1993 Surveys: This report is meant to complement and update the original (1991) version and the 1992-93 updates, rather than supersede them. The objective is to point out differences in the observations and conclusions of the previous reports and, as a consequence, important points in those earlier documents will not necessarily be repeated here. It should be noted that although the cover of the original report indicated that the survey had been conducted in January 1992, the survey was actually conducted in the autumn of 1991.

Rick Ingersoll and Scott E. Chapal January 1992 Report of LTER electronic data collection survey.

Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Sites manage a diverse array of ecological information resulting from research on ecological succession, disturbance, landscape ecology, elemental cycling, trophic structure, biodiversity, organic matter and primary productivity. Since its inception in 1980, the LTER Network has evolved from a primarily site-based research focus to a network and cross-site focus. Coincident with this evolution has been the development of metadata standards.

More than 100 individuals attended a two-day workshop (August 8-9, 1997) entitled Data and Information Management in the Ecological Sciences that was held at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Objectives of the workshop were to: effect technology transfer, especially at biological field stations and marine laboratories; facilitate people networking; communicate training needs and opportunities; identify future needs for data management at field stations; and produce hard copy and digital versions of the proceedings.

Final Report of the Ecological Society of America Committee on the Future of Long-term Ecological Data (FLED) Vol. 1 Volume I: Text of the Report, submitted by Katherine L. Gross, Chair and Catherine E. Pake, Research Associate, December 1995

Final Report of the Ecological Society of America Committee on the Future of Long-term Ecological Data (FLED) Vol. 2 Volume II: Directories to Sources of Long-Term Ecological Data, submitted by Katherine L. Gross, Chair and Catherine E. Pake, Research Associate, December 1995

Data management workshop at which representatives from field stations and coastal marine stations examined the state of data management. Held at Kellogg Biological Station, April 22-26, 1990.

An interdisciplinary workshop on scientific database management, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, was held at the University of Virginia in March 1990. The workshop final report, a digest of the workshop proceedings summarizing the panel discussions and highlighting the workshop recommendations, is available at http://intranet.lternet.edu/archives/documents/data-informationmanagement/UVA_CS_90/cs_90-21.pdf.

On March 12-13, 1990, the National Science Foundation sponsored a two day workshop hosted by the University of Virginia, at which representatives from the earth, life, and space sciences gathered together with computer scientists to discuss the problems facing the scientific community in the area of database management. This report summarizes the discussion which took place at that meeting.

This report presents the results of deliberations at a workshop held in May 1982 at Kellogg Biological Stataion to address what is perceived as a general problem of omission at field research site–that of data management. Data management has not had a very high priority at most established field research stations and only recently has there been a coordinated effort to develop data management systems among sites identified in the NSF-supported Long Term Ecological Research network.