BCO-DMO and GeoLink: Smart Data, Brilliant Research

Abstract: 

Established in late 2006, the Biological and Chemical Oceanography Office (BCO-DMO; http://bco-dmo.org) is funded by the NSF Division of Ocean Sciences (OCE) and Division of Polar Programs (PLR) to improve data availability and discovery, and to enable subsequent data integration and accurate use. BCO-DMO staff members work closely with investigators to ensure that data generated during research funded by those NSF programs are documented, freely available, and preserved long after the research is completed.  Efforts at BCO-DMO focus on comprehensive data management activities that span the full data life cycle from “proposal through preservation”, ultimately ensuring that data resulting from marine research projects are archived at the appropriate US National Data Center.

In addition to managing and serving ocean biogeochemistry and marine ecosystem data from NSF OCE and PLR funded research projects, BCO-DMO staff members work on several synergistic research projects, the results of which will enhance BCO-DMO data discoverability, access and interpretation. BCO-DMO is one of the partners in GeoLink (http://earthcube.org/group/geolink), an NSF funded EarthCube Building Block project. Using extensible GeoLink methodologies BCO-DMO has incorporated Semantic Web technologies, including Linked Open Data and Ontology Design Patterns, to enhance the BCO-DMO data system architecture to publish ‘smart data’. Adding semantic markup and publishing BCO-DMO content in standards-compliant ways facilitates integration of complementary results from other repositories that curate geoscience research data. BCO-DMO is one node in a comprehensive cyberinfrastructure that enables open, transparent, networked, interoperable access to data and information.
 

Creative Common License: 
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License