Section 4.3 Data Management Life Cycle
The vision for data management in ABoVE includes not only the data lifecycle for a traditional project, but also the use and reuse of data to answer new science questions. The data management life cycle for ABoVE follows closely with the ideas presented by Rüegg et al. (2014). In a “traditional” project, research is planned, data are collected, and a write-up or journal article is published describing the data (right side of diagram below). However, with a large field campaign such as ABoVE, integrated information is needed to ensure that researchers can communicate and share knowledge with one another across the diverse aspects of ABoVE. Data collected for one science project will need to be reused by others throughout the campaign and integrated into additional analyses (left side of diagram). To ensure that ABoVE data are available to others throughout the campaign, ABoVE will stage data for the campaign in a central location available to ABoVE researchers (the ABoVE Science Cloud) to facility data sharing and collaboration by ABoVE researchers. Data products from individual ABoVE projects will be archived at appropriate archive centers for the campaign, and then these data will be made available on the ABoVE Science Cloud for reuse by others in the ABoVE campaign. In this way, ABoVE will “close” the data life cycle.
Rüegg et al. 2014. Completing the data life cycle: using information management in macrosystems ecology research. Front Ecol Environ 12 (1): 24-30. doi:10.1890/120375
