[LTER-im] request for comments 'decomissioning SiteDB'

[Corinna Gries]

Hi all,

Just a quick reminder that the deadline for comments is tomorrow. Thank you to those who have given us feedback. So far we have only heard agreement with the plan.

Thanks
Corinna

From: Corinna Gries
Sent: Wednesday, June 28, 2017 5:22 PM
To: LTER IM; 'site-exec at lternet.edu'; 'exec at lternet.edu'
Subject: request for comments 'decomissioning SiteDB'

Request for Comments (RFC) - 6/28/2017
Decommissioning LTER SiteDB

To: LTER Exec group, Site Information Managers
From: Environmental Data Initiative (EDI), LTER Network Communications Office (LTER NCO)

Background
SiteDB is a network database whose original purpose was to house standardized information about LTER member sites. SiteDB covers the who is who at sites, web addresses, research goals, and some physical site parameters (temperature, precipitation etc.), in support of communication and research. Updating of information has been difficult and the current SiteDB holdings are known to be out of date, most of the information is not accessible and the public display of some of the information (https://lternet.edu/lter-sites) is maintained manually by NCO personnel.

A recent request for updates from Marty Downs has addressed the part of SiteDB information needed for effective communication with sites (i.e., the who is who), and the display of a site profile (https://lternet.edu/lter-sites).

Recommendations


●     EDI will archive SiteDB contents as two data sets, with EML metadata to ensure that the contents are preserved and accessible:

a.    The physical site parameters may actually be useful as background information for synthesis work, if accessible as a dataset

b.    The description of site research goals in SiteDB represents a snapshot in time and may be useful to document research evolution.

●     LTER Site public-facing profiles will be housed in a simple web-based system that is easily updated by NCO in cooperation with LTER site personnel. At present, this is intended to include the fields represented on the https://lternet.edu/lter-sites profiles, plus the following: site coordinates; current grant (number and link), partner organizations (names and links) and site social media profiles.

RFC Process
Please send comments to: Corinna Gries (cgries at wisc.edu<mailto:cgries at wisc.edu>) and Marty Downs (downs at nceas.ucsb.edu<mailto:downs at nceas.ucsb.edu>) or discuss on original recipient list.
For more information, contact EDI at info at environmentaldatainitiative.org<mailto:info at environmentaldatainitiative.org>, or LTER NCO at nco at lternet.edu<mailto:nco at lternet.edu>.
Please send comments by COB on July 14th, 2017. If we don’t hear major objections we will proceed with the following implementation:

Planned implementation

●     NCO: Decommission the management interface

●     NCO: Export SiteDB contents as CSV tables.

●     EDI: Build EML metadata for exported tables. Archive in the LTER repository

●     NCO: Determine the set of fields required for public-facing LTER Site profiles. Develop a system and share a system for maintenance.


Thank you for your input as we move to update LTER information

NCO and EDI teams

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