ADVANCING DATA STEWARDSHIP TO BUILD A SUSTAINABLE DATA INFRASTRUCTURE

The vision of digital and data-driven geosciences can only be realized if we achieve a comprehensive and sustainable data infrastructure that will make geoscience data discoverable and accessible for re-use across disciplines in a meaningful and scientifically sound manner, and interoperable with data from other domains. A broad and daunting spectrum of issues needs to be addressed in order to develop such infrastructure that will not only deliver data to users and client systems in an easily digestible and understandable way, but that will also be embraced and adopted by the science communities to readily contribute and share their data. Solutions to organizational and social challenges are equally important to technological developments, and include data sharing and publication policies, best practices for data attribution and citation, as well as the development of resources and incentives for data stewardship. A critical role in advancing data stewardship falls to disciplinary data centers that can bridge the requirements and expectations of science communities with respect to data quality, data usability, and credit with the necessities of long-term accessibility and data stewardship, and the demands of evolving technologies such as interoperability. Disciplinary repositories help define and implement community-approved best practices and standards, provide guidance and tools to investigators that support and facilitate data publication workflows, and ensure data quality, all of which are fundamental to broad adoption and trust.

This presentation will showcase IEDA (www.iedadata.org) as an example for a community-driven data facility that provides tools and services to support data stewardship throughout the full life cycle of observational data in the solid earth sciences, with a focus on the data management needs of individual researchers. IEDA’s services include domain-focused data curation and synthesis, investigator support services that include tools for data contribution, data publication services, and data compliance support, as well as a wide range of tools for data discovery, access, visualization and analysis