Rolling Deck to Repository (R2R) Perspectives from a Decade of Ocean
Data Management
Abstract
The Rolling Deck to Repository (R2R; www.rvdata.us) program is entering
its second decade of managing underway data from US-operated academic
research vessels to ensure preservation of, and access to, these
national oceanographic research assets. Reflecting on the move from
decentralized data submission by chief scientists to an operational
centralized facility has brought insights that may inform other
communities with distributed networks of data acquisition providers with
diverse practices and resources. 4,000 cruises and 100+TB of data later,
here are lessons R2R has learned. - Managing data via a central
aggregating system where both curation and domain data expertise can be
optimally leveraged promotes more complete and efficient data
preservation. - Identifying key organizing elements for the data, and
implementing persistent identifiers and metadata for those elements,
facilitates management and usability. R2R developed authoritative DOIs
and standard metadata for cruises to organize R2R data for
discoverability and access, and facilitate reciprocal linking to related
data in external repositories. When data submissions from diverse
providers are heterogeneous, standardizing data at ingest supports data
aggregation and synthesis that promote broad data re-use. - Providing
tools and expertise to assist with standardization, such as recommended
data structures and best practice guidance for data acquisition, reduces
heterogenoeus practices over time even when compliance is voluntary. -
Developing organized and persistent communication mechanisms with all
main stakeholders is central to success. R2R has annual community-level
meetings, as well as more frequent individual interactions, with vessel
operators/technicians, the NOAA National Centers for Environmental
Information staff, and oceanographic research scientists. These
communications have been critical to informing high level priorities,
overall approaches, and specific technical details and decisions.