Palmer Station LTER SiteFlash - August 2004 - Karen Baker


PALMER INFORMATION MANAGEMENT (IM) supported the annual January cruise
and the seasonal October to March station work.  The second year of the 3rd 
Palmer LTER proposal cycle initiated technology review and infrastructure
redesign in order to support transitions to new approaches to networking
and to data and metadata structures.

LTER NETWORK ACTIVITY included particpation in the LTER Information Manger
Committee, attendance at the LTER IM Committee Meeting (Aug04), a web services
workshop (Jan04) at SDSC, and an LTER IM Executive Committee Meeting in 
San Diego (Jan04). Contributions were made and support provided for the 
semi-annual Databits Newsletters. Investigations of collaborative tools
as part of a planned web site upgrade are underway and synergize
with ongoing efforts at the LTER Network Office, at other LTER sites, 
and with local Scripps endeavors.

SITE DATA MANAGEMENT activities included support for annual updates to the
Palmer LTER data repository and to the site bibliography. 
In preparing for redesign of the Palmer LTER data system, a workshop 
on Data Management Exchange provided input on the 
Joint Global Ocean Flux Studies (JGOFS) Data Management System, 
an oceanographic community standard. Installation occurred this year 
at the request of the Palmer scientific team who are familiar
with the user interface. This application is largely compatable in
basic organizational structure with the existing
Palmer LTER data system and metadata tags but provides a prompt
for more controlled vocabularies.  The JGOFS data requirements are 
being juxtaposed with the LTER Ecological Metadata Language requirements 
as procedures are identified for data quality controlled and normalization. 
Transition work includes development of suite of site XML dictionaries 
that will integrate with both JGOFS and EML. 
Additional analysis packages as well as community exchange protocol 
are also being investigated as part of transition efforts.

COMPUTATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE for the Palmer LTER within the Institute 
for Computational Earth System Science (ICESS) at UCSB continued
without major changes other than continued security vigilence.
In addition, transition plans for elements of the Palmer LTER computational
infrastructure are underway. Partnership with the Integrative Oceanographic 
Division at Scripps Institution of Oceanography has renewed support 
for Macintosh platforms, Linux and open source software solutions as well
as renewed focus on open source software (Apache, MySQL and Php).

Ongoing Palmer LTER IM INTERDISCIPLINARY collaboration with Science & 
Technology Studies represents an effort linking environmental science, 
information management, and social science through joint research 
on social and technical aspects of both information systems and of 
science collaboration and how these represent and support agents of
change.  This work has been presented to the LTER community via talks 
and written communications. A  paper was presented at the Hawaii International
Conference on System Science (Jan04), at the Participatory Design
Conference (Aug04), and a poster presented at the 
LTER All Scientists Meeting.  Follow-up on a Computer Supported 
Scientific Collaboration Workshop at the Euopean Computer Supported 
Cooperative Work Conference organized in September 2003 included a 
published proceedings and a paper as well as the opportunity to consider, 
together with the international community, how collaboration in the 
field of science is being addressed.

COMPUTATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE for the Palmer LTER within the Institute 
for Computational Earth System Science (ICESS) at UCSB continued
without major changes although with updated security vigilence.
Partnership with the Integrative Oceanographic 
Division (IOD) at Scripps Institution of Oceanography developed and
renewed support 
for Macintosh platforms while providing opportunities to investigate 
Linux and open source software solutions. Focus sharpened on open 
source software (Apache, MySQL and Php), compatible with all partners.
Purchase and installation of a new storage and web server system 
(apple Xserve and XserveRAID) was completed.
The installation of a JGOFS data system node at IOD in response to the
Palmer scientific team request occurred. 

Journal Publications
Karasti, H. and K. S. Baker (2004). Infrastructuring for the Long-term:
Ecological Information Management. Proceedings of the Hawaii
International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) 2004, 5-8
January, Big Island, Hawaii. New Brunswick, NJ, IEEE.

Baker, K. S. (2004). Ecological Design: an Interdisciplinary, Interactive
Participation Process in an Information Environment. Proceedings of
the Workshop on Requirements Capture for Collaboration in e-Science,
14-15 January, Edinburgh: 5-7.

Karasti, H., K. S. Baker and G. C. Bowker, Eds. (2003). ECSCW 2003:
Proceedings of the Computer Supported Scientific Collaboration
Workshop, Eighth European Conference on Computer Supported
Cooperative Work, Helsinki, Finland, 14 September 2003. Finland,
University of Oulu Department of Information Processing
Science Research Paper Series. A34, 55pp. ISBN: 951-2-7121-1; ISSN:0786-8413.

H. Karasti, K. S. Baker, G.C.Bowker. ECSCW 2003 Computer Supported
Scientific Collaboration (CSSC). SIGGROUP Bulletin (in press).