Scientific Data Publication is Enabled by Interoperability at the WDCs
World Data Center (WDC) System
Almost 50 years ago, the first World Data Centers (WDC) have been founded through the International Council for Scientific Unions (ICSU) in order to archive and distribute data collected from the observational programs of the 1957-1958 International Geophysical Year. Originally established in the United States, Europe, Russia, and Japan, the WDC system has since expanded to 51 centers in 12 countries. Its holdings are trans-disciplinary. They include a wide range of solar, geophysical, environmental, and human dimensions data covering timescales ranging from seconds to millennia and providing baseline information for research in many ICSU disciplines, especially for monitoring changes in the geosphere and biosphere—gradual or sudden, foreseen or unexpected, natural or man-made.
To revise a 50 year old structure and develop appropriate short and medium-term strategies, a WDC conference was convened in Bremen, Germany (Click Here for the report>. The conference was dedicated to a variety of subjects, including:
WDC and GEOSS
Earth observation systems provide measurements, which have been observed historically in isolation. The current Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS) effort is conceived for synoptic access and large-scale and complex analysis of all types of empirical data. All subscribing nations have a unique role in developing and maintaining the system, collecting data, enhancing data distribution, and providing models.
The WDC System is a large long-term archiving capacity comprising a unique data management expertise and is thus of great importance to GEOSS, said speaker José Achache, Director of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO).
WDC and Networking
Usually, data are – if at all – available from scattered sources, in heterogeneous formats, and conflicting semantic specifications only. They are unequal in representation and quality. Though, the holistic understanding of the system Earth requires data sharing, harmonization, and integration – to mention some prerequisites only.
The already successful interoperability among WDCs is hence the key to a further integration into other communities, stated speaker Peter Pissierssens, UNESCO’s IODE Programme Coordinator. In a next step, a limited number of data centers shall validate the network’s backbone through an all–WDC data portal. Development, use, and maintenance of open and international information standards and protocols shall furthermore foster the agreed GEOSS data sharing principles.
WDC data access and data quality
WDCs provide online access to scientific data free of charge and without any discrimination. A common concept, however, for the advancement of data quality and access does not yet exist. As scientific knowledge is communicated through scientific literature, and as knowledge is ultimately derived from data, speaker Hannes Grobe, principal of PANGAEA (Publishing Network for Geoscientific & Environmental Data, www.pangaea.de) discussed the novel concept of data publication. Peer-review, persistent identification, open access, and long-term availability would furthermore meet the rules of good scientific practice, inter-governmental policies, and various funding policies.
Within the last half century, an enormous technical evolution in computer techniques and a fundamental change in clients’ requirements left sustainable traces on scientific data management. Today’s heterogeneity in data centers’ equipment and work flow is perceptible in the WDC System, too. Even more important it is that among any of the above mentioned challenges open access to scientific data and trans-disciplinarity remain the unique selling positions in a strong World Data Center corporate identity.
Excerpt from Dittert, N., M. Diepenbroek, and H. Grobe (2007), Toward a Networked Publication and Library System for Scientific Data, Eos Trans. AGU, 88(48), 524.
To learn more about the World Data Center system, visit http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/wdc/.