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Enhancing the Value and Sustainability of Field Stations and Marine Laboratories in the 21st Century (2014) / Chapter Skim
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4 Building and Maintaining a Modern Infrastructure
Pages 45-54

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
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From page 45...
... The National Research Council's report Critical Infrastructure for Ocean Research and Societal Needs in 2030 (NRC 2011) identifies next-generation categories of infrastructure that should be included in planning, provides advice on criteria that could be used to set priorities for asset development or replacement, recommends ways in which federal agencies could maximize the value of ocean infrastructure investments, and addresses societal issues.
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From page 46...
... The die has been cast in part by the call in the National Research Council report on critical infrastructure (NRC 2011) for "a coordinated national strategic plan for critical shared ocean infrastructure investment, maintenance, and retirement." A similarly coordinated strategic plan is needed for field stations.
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From page 47...
... Map depicts country of and categories of research conducted at large-scale research centers (pie charts) overlain with the location of biological field stations (red triangles)
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From page 48...
... Respondents suggested that increased support for Internet access would improve scientists' ability to use field stations while providing potential visiting scientists with access to specific data catalogs that are critical for developing research programs. According to the survey, a major problem is that basic data catalogs -- species lists, maps, weather data, and land-use history -- often are lacking at field stations.
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From page 49...
... Scientists, students, or even visitors can see how data that they collect fit into larger temporal and spatial contexts. Data Management Infrastructure to organize, archive, and share data collected at a field station could expand the impact of a field station's research by making data available to other researchers to use, and by facilitating the ability to track data use and impact.
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From page 50...
... Most institutions that fund research have a basic expectation that recipients will have specific data-management and data-sharing plans that will advance scientific objectives, maximize learning, and improve understanding of the outcomes of public investment by providing timely and long-term public access to, and relatively straightforward retrieval of, their data. With the shift from "small science" to "big science" (Meyer 2009)
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From page 51...
... The Berkeley Ecoinformatics Engine,35 funded by the Keck Foundation at $3.5 million, could serve as a model for addressing both the dark-data challenge and the problem of integrating diverse databases within regional networks of field stations. The intent of the program was to organize and unify the wealth of data in University of California, Berkeley laboratories, natural-history museums, and field stations and to merge them with diverse environmental baselayers on climate, land cover or use, vegetation indexes, hydrology, and fire and other freely available datasets.
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From page 52...
... Those categories could be used to outline infrastructure in the context of individual field station needs and services. For example, the infrastructuremanagement plan would describe how and when data collected with a placebased infrastructure are to be stored (remain part of the field station infrastructure)
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From page 53...
... Building and Maintaining a Modern Infrastructure 53 However, Internet connectivity and cyberinfrastructure should be included in all infrastructure-management plans to allow field stations to facilitate collaborative research and participate in broader networking efforts. The process of archiving dark data into digitally accessible formats is critical, and should begin with the most recent datasets and progress back in time so that field stations can expand their sets of continuous longitudinal data.
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Key Terms

  • field station
  • biological field
  • station infrastructure
  • research infrastructures
  • ocean research

  • global infrastructure
  • station managers
  • ocean infrastructure
  • critical infrastructure
  • european union

  • laboratory space
  • freely available
  • stations vary
  • internet connectivity
  • broader scientific

  • infrastructure field
  • individual field
  • independent field
  • fund research
  • provide research

  • nuclear research
  • developing research
  • extensive research
  • research sites
  • unites previously

  • single sites
  • stations themselves
  • results incorporated
  • outline infrastructure
  • coordinated strategic


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