1. Digital Data Practices and the Long Term Ecological Research Program Helena Karasti, Karen Baker & Katharina Schleidt FinLTSER, US LTER, ALTER-Net

2. Let the voyage continue… From the 20th century of ’data’ into a 21st century with … dataspaces, …knowledge provinces, … digital universes … cyberspace

3. Outline of talk Introductions  Author partnership  LTER Network Data Characteristics Data Practices Data Curation Recent Developments and Changing Scopes Global Science and Changing Practices  Semantic work Concluding Words and Perspectives  The long term

4. Our Partnership Karen Baker: What I learned about the work of informatics together with science studies  Familiarity with processes of information infrastructure building  Experience with design, collaboration, & articulation  Knowledge of historical contexts & comparative cases  Awareness of multiple perspectives & invisible work  Skills with the qualitative including ethnography What I started to ask: * What opportunity does design present for  new types of information environments  new types of learning environments  data stewardship

5. Helena Karasti: What I learned about the long-term:  LTER concept of doing science  Long-term  Data sharing  Large-scale collaboration  Long-term perspective permeates everything  Balancing tensions between the needs of data, science and technology  Multiple temporalities  The notion of infrastructure and the work of infrastructuring What I started to ask:  What does long-term mean for information systems? Our Partnership Technology Science Data IM service design manage Karasti & Baker HICSS 2004

6. Helena Karasti: What I started to ask:  What does long-term mean for Information Systems?  How to integrate long-term and infrastructure thinking into systems design? Long Term and Information Systems Karasti & Siikamäki, SAON 2007

7. Design and Local Information Environments Karen Baker: What I started to ask: * What opportunity does design present for  new types of information environments?  new types of learning environments? Design Studio Information Infrastructure Local Information Environment Ecosystems LTER 5 year plan Global Information Environment iTeam Information Infrastructure Local Information Participants

8. Design and Local Information Environments Karen Baker: What I started to ask: * What opportunity does design present for  new types of information environments?  new types of learning environments? Design Studio Information Infrastructure Local Information Environment Ecosystems LTER 5 year plan Global Information Environment iTeam Information Infrastructure Local Information Participants

9. Long Term Ecological Research Networks (I) US LTER since 1980 A social network: 2100 participants 26 site biomes Network Office A technological network: 26 information managers Loose network supporting local site data repositories Sites work in collaboration on Network Information System Instrumenting the ecosystem nationalinternational

10. Long Term Ecological Research Networks (II) International LTER Since 1993 Several regional networks 38 national networks (2007) LTER-Europe Established in 2007 through merger of regional European networks ALTER-Net NoE (6FP) to build LTER-Europe (2004- 2009)

11. Salient Characteristics of LTER Data (I) Long-Term Ecological Research Network Long Term: invisible present Ecological: invisible place Research:ecosystem(s) Network:relationships retrospectiveprospective localglobal Entities& events Flows & processes competitioncooperation humannatural

12. Wide variety of data types Ongoing updates to datasets Field science manual data taking and increasingly automated data collecting Salient Characteristics of LTER Data (II) staticdynamic automated manual homogeneousheterogeneous simplecomplex experimentalobservational

13. LTER Data Practices (I) Uses and Reuses Open access to primary research data since mid 1990s Long-term datasets can have multiple relationships with other datasets and research questions during their life-cycle Multiple data users & uses  Local data use  Collection use  Public data reuse usereuse

14. LTER Data Practices (II) Data Description “We are finding now that the structured metadata is much more useful in terms of producing machine readable information but the narrative often times contains more information.” (IM) standardized informal LTER data requires intensive description “You have certain levels of metadata … if someone within the site was using the data, they know a lot about the whole collection system and the research system at the site, so you can give them less metadata … but to somebody outside or for somebody 20 or 30 years down the road, then it’s going to be more and more critical that this whole story unfold.” (IM) More standardized metadata approaches crucial “[Ecological Metadata Language] really excites us... we can actually leverage the ecological community at large to provide higher level tools for analysis, and modeling to our researchers as well as to make our data and metadata available for cross-site studies.” (IM)

15. Data Curation Approach (I): Extended Temporal Horizon Karasti, Baker et al. 2006 pastfuture present

16. “It is a constant battle to stay current in technology” (IM) “Information managers continue to come back to assessing whatever projects they want to develop to whether it is really going to support the research at the site.” (IM) “The experience we have had… the issue isn’t how you do it, it’s how do you maintain it and how do you make it so that it is easily maintainable” (IM). “You need to convert them into thinking that putting data in our databank and on the web is something they really want to do. If they don’t have the mindset that they want to share the data, it is really difficult to make them do it… It’s been a massive process of sort of education and badgering, to get people to think that it’s important.” (IM) Data Curation Approach (II): Local Information Management “Data are best managed at a site by people who know them... as far as quality control and assurance, and understanding the ways in which they were collected and the sites that collected them. There is a real feeling at sites that the best place for data is at sites.” (IM) “It’s helping the investigators with a lot of issues involving data, technology, computers or others, … helping people to get their thing done, from little to big things.” (IM) Technology Science Data IM service design manage Karasti & Baker HICSS 2004

17. Data Curation Approach (III): Information Management Committee Information managers from each site join in a network-level Community-of-Practice  sharing, learning, reflection  collaborative efforts  developing professional identity sitenetwork “LTER information managers have taken the time that fosters an integrative, sustainable approach with technology, ensuring that we learn together” (IM) IMC is “really pivotal in leading the entire LTER community in recognizing the value of information technology and information management” (IM)

18. Recent Developments in LTER Scope ‘Global science pull’: Global issues give rise to  scaling up networks  considering human dimension  Urban sites (USA) and LTSER sites (Europe) Spectrum of disciplines involved has increased  Ecological sciences to social sciences  Computer to information sciences ‘Technology push’: New technology opportunities of e-Science/Cyberinfrastructure offer new directions  Automated data generation/collection  Expansion of data scope

19. Recent Developments in Data Practices (III) Data Description & Relations  U.S.LTER - metadata, EML  ALTER-Net - proto ontological  SEEK - ontological Data relations involve language, models, and systems as ways of representing, processing, and communicating information

20. Concluding Words: New Digital Dataspaces Transition vs augmentation Complex negotiations, mediations, and alignments  Technical, Organizational, Social Two points emerge 1. In addition to creating new practices, we should also carefully study what is at stake in existing practices Emergent roles Emergent vocabulary 2. ‘Manual data taking’ and ‘automated data taking’ represent different data curation paradigms  New types of cross-fertilization  Informatics, Social Informatics, Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Infrastructure Studies, Social Studies of Science and Technology

21. Concluding Perspectives: New Knowledge Provinces * Baker and Millerand, ASIST 2007

22. Concluding Perspectives: New Ways of Thinking Long Term Information Systems Design Information Environments Interdisciplinary Global Science Information Infrastructure Building Community Building Collaborative Partnerships In theory In practice

23. A long term voyage “The long-term has the advantage that you know that you are going to come back to things, or if a thread slows down or is dropped, down the road you can pick up that thread, because you will be on the same project … You will re-address something the next day, week or year. You are always related, affiliated, associated. LTER has that continuity.” (IM) U.S.LTERhttp://lternet.edu International LTER: http://ilternet.edu LTER-Europe: http://www.lter-europe.ceh.ac.uk/ ALTER-Net: http://www.alter-net.info/ FinLTSER: http://www.environment.fi/syke/lter