The DataONE office, based within both the Office of the Vice President of Research and University Libraries at the University of New Mexico, has been awarded $20 million by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support its scientific research activities for the next five years. The project is under the direction of William Michener, professor and director of e-science initiatives at University Libraries.
Photo: William Michener
Researchers at UNM have partnered with dozens of other universities and agencies to create DataONE, a global data access and preservation network for earth and environmental scientists that will support breakthroughs in environmental research.
DataONE is designed to provide universal access to data about life on Earth and the environment that sustains it. The underlying technologies will provide open, persistent, robust, and secure access to well-described and easily discovered Earth observational data.
Expected users include scientists, educators, librarians, resource managers, and the public. By providing easy and open access to a broad range of science data, as well as tools for managing, analyzing, and visualizing data, DataONE will be transformative in the speed with which researchers will be able to assemble and analyze data sets and in the types of problems they will be able to address.
UNM President David J. Schmidly said, “I want to congratulate Professor Michener and his team on their success in receiving this prestigious NSF award. DataONE places UNM in a national and international leadership position in these rapidly-growing disciplines, and is an excellent demonstration of the talents and expertise of UNM's faculty."
DataONE is one of two $20 million awards made this year as part of the National Science Foundation's (NSF) DataNet program. The collaboration of universities and government agencies coalesced to address the mounting need for organizing and serving up vast amounts of highly diverse and inter-related but often-incompatible scientific data. Resulting studies will range from research that illuminates fundamental environmental processes to identifying environmental problems and potential solutions.
“I want to thank Professor Michener for his leadership and hard work that went into making DataONE possible. I look forward to working with Bill and the entire DataONE team as we begin to embark on this exciting new project," said Julia Fulghum, Vice President for Research.
The DataONE team will study how a vast digital data network can provide secure and permanent access into the future, and also encourage scientists to share their information. The team will help determine data citation standards, as well as create the tools for organizing, managing, and publishing data.
The resulting computing and processing “cyberinfrastructure” will be made permanently available for use by the broader national and international science communities. DataONE is led by the University of New Mexico, and includes additional partner organizations across the United States as well as from Europe, Africa, South America, Asia, and Australia.
This grant is important nationally, and locally especially for our research community. University Libraries Dean Martha Bedard said, “The University Libraries are key partners in UNM research initiatives, and are excited and committed to supporting the emerging area of data curation, which this grant seeks to support in sophisticated ways.”
DataONE will build a set of geographically distributed Coordinating Nodes that play an important role in facilitating all of the activities of the global network, as well as a network of Member Nodes that host relevant data and tools. The initial three Coordinating Nodes will be at the University of New Mexico, UC Santa Barbara (housed at the Davidson Library), and at the University of Tennessee/Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Member Nodes will be located in association with universities, libraries, research networks, and agencies worldwide.
DataONE includes experts from library, computer, and environmental sciences explicitly to bridge these worlds and to develop an infrastructure to serve science for many decades to come.
New Mexico’s supercomputer, operated by the New Mexico Computing Applications Center, played a vital role in the application process for the grant awarded to UNM. The NMCAC and its supercomputer, which is considered to be the fastest publicly available supercomputer in the world, committed to provide critical support for the project.
“The supercomputer helped the state get the grants and helped UNM to win the awards,” said J. Leonard ‘Lenny’ Martinez, Chief Operating Officer of NMCAC. “We’re thrilled with the outcome and look forward to participating in these very important projects.”
About William Michener...
William Michener is professor and director of e-Science Initiatives for University Libraries at the University of New Mexico. He has a Ph.D. in Biological Oceanography from the University of South Carolina and has published extensively in the marine, ecological, and information sciences. During the past decade he has directed several large interdisciplinary research programs and cyberinfrastructure projects including the NSF Biocomplexity Program, the Development Program for the NSF-funded Long-Term Ecological Research Network, and numerous cyberinfrastructure projects that focus on developing information technologies for the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences.
He currently directs the New Mexico DoE and NSF EPSCoR Programs and the DataONE project—an NSF initiative designed to preserve and promote the use of biological, ecological, and environmental data. He is especially passionate about changing the scientific and academic cultures so that data are recognized and treated as important products of the scientific enterprise—essentially equivalent to publications in their potential value to science and society.
He has authored four books related to ecological informatics and more than 70 journal articles and book chapters. He is a Certified Senior Ecologist and serves as Editor of Ecological Archives and Associate Editor of the International Journal of Ecological Informatics. He has directed several large interdisciplinary research programs and cyberinfrastructure projects including the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Biocomplexity Program, the Development Program for the NSF-funded Long-Term Ecological Research Network, and numerous cyberinfrastructure research and development projects. His current efforts focus on developing information technologies for the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences.
Media Contact: Karen Wentworth, (505) 277-5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu
Posted by scarr at November 18, 2009 10:20 AM