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 was acquired on December 23, 2007, with a Kodak 760C digital camera fitted with a 400 mm lens, and is provided bISS016-E y the ISS Crew Earth Observations experiment. The image was taken by the Expedition 16 crew, and is provided by the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, JExpedition 16 crew, ohnson Space Center. (

LUQ IMS: Processes Research 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 data Tends 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

Infrastruct ure : 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

Infrastruct ure : Technology- Online A Web site to share data and metadata:

Infrastruct ure : Technology- Online

Infrastruct ure : 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: tesplone/projects/ tesplone/projects/

Infrastruct ure : 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

Infrastruct ure : Metadata For the User: Forms in a friendly format En EML standards for developers: Now at level 3 – 4 Developing to level 5: attribute level Online forms (under construction at the LNO)

Network Acitivities: Climdb/Hydrodb Three climdb stations Nine Hydro En EML standards Now at level 3 – 4 Developing to level 5: attribute level

Infrastruct ure : Other Services Online forms available to the LUQ scientific community to: Request data Do 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 Plan Embodies both the people technologies Allows collaborative activities collaborative 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!